UNIFE and UIC have agreed to work together in the field of voluntary rail standardisation and to jointly publish Technical Recommendations (TecRecs).
Jean Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director General, and Eric Fontanel, UNIFE General Manager, signed on 11 December a Memorandum of Understanding to formalise this agreement
TecRecs are the recently created vehicle for publishing UIC/UNIFE standards that
will initially be applied to the European rolling stock domain and its interfaces with
other subsystems.
Pending the publication of a European standard for rail rolling stock technology (EN), a TecRec will serve as a common standard aimed at improving the
competitiveness of the European railway system. Approved by UIC and UNIFE alike, TecRecs are recognised as a voluntary standard by the rail sector as a whole.
“TecRecs will make rail standardisation processes more effective and efficient” stated Jean Pierre Loubinoux. “TecRecs will be endowed with a high level of sector agreement and are designed to feed directly into the established European
standardisation system, thus increasing the publication speed of ENs. TecRecs will
set new product and interface standards, which are of high priority to both UNIFE
and UIC. We look forward to working very closely with UNIFE and our other
partners to develop this vehicle into one that will add a considerable amount of
value to our members and the sector as a whole”.
“TecRecs will allow the rail supply industry to further enhance its contribution to
the European rail standardisation system. This Memorandum of Understanding is a
symbol of a new era of collaboration between rail operators and the industry in
developing a more competitive railway system” Eric Fontanel declared. “TecRecs
will also facilitate the optimal publication of important UNIFE/UIC EU R&D project
results, thus improving their chances of market uptake.”
The general framework hierarchy for TecRecs is:
1. EN standards elaborated by CEN/CLC
2. TecRecs elaborated by UIC and UNIFE
3. UIC leaflets elaborated by UIC
