In the current world context, railway security is expected to play an increasingly omnipresent and strategic role.

The changing nature and shift in threats are the reasons rail stakeholders (infrastructure managers and operators) are seeking more efficient solutions in order to adapt their organisational methods to the new “ground rules”.

This congress, jointly organised by UIC and SNCF and that will be held on 13 and 14 November 2013 in Paris at UIC Headquarters, should serve as an opportunity to hold broad discussions and to answer the questions with which operators have been confronted for several years now, in particular via the UIC working group on strategy and regulation:

• “Which changes do operators wish to make, and which can or must they make, to security organisational arrangements within the limits of current regulatory requirements?”

• “How can consistency be ensured in order to guarantee rail security beyond national borders and in the new railway context?”

Furthermore, security is under the shared responsibility of national authorities and railway companies. Each country divides tasks between security stakeholders according to its own prerogatives, in line with its specific national situation and constraints, enabling partnerships to be established in an international context.

The rail sector needs to work coherently and collaboratively on these needs. The debates held during the congress should help make progress on the subject and clarify the direction of the work to be conducted at UIC as well as in various competent cooperative authorities, such as Colpofer for operational aspects in Europe. Within the latter, the current legislative proposals endorsed and outlined in the European Commission’s recently published Fourth Railway Package on creating “borderless” transport and promoting market liberalisation, further highlight the need for coordination among stakeholders.