The session was opened by Mr Manuel Queiró, Director General of CP (Portuguese Railways) and Mr Frédéric Delorme, UIC Safety Platform Chairman and Safety Director at SNCF.

20 people participated including two delegates specialising in railway safety issues at the Ministry of Transport of Kazakhstan.

All of them had the opportunity to exchange on railway safety issues as a whole, latest incidents, accidents, UIC safety data base, best practices, measures to take, human factors, safety culture, implementation of the Fourth Railway Package etc.

Our Portuguese hosts, more specifically from CP, IP, the National Safety Authority (NSA) and the NIB (National Investigation Body) gave an overview on railway safety issues in their country:

• Introduction of the CP network by Mrs Dora Peralta, Director of Safety and Coordination
• National Safety Authority (José Pires and Paulo Taveira): Mr Paulo Taveira introduced the work of the Portuguese NSA to implement the Technical Pillar of Fourth Railway Package in Portugal, the organisation of the NSA and the cleaning of national rules
• Mrs Luísa Garcia, Infrastructure Manager Safety and Security Manager at IP informed the meeting about how to deal with the occupational health and safety issues to increase employee productivity
• Mr Nelson Oliveira from the National Safety Board Investigation Director presented the role of the Portuguese rail accident investigation office in helping to improve safety in rail.

Chair persons of the UIC Safety Platform working groups gave an overview of their activities:

• Mr Jean-François Meunier, SNCF, Chairman of SSMG (System Safety Management Group)
• Mr Bart Hoogcarspel, Prorail, Chairman of SPG (Safety Performance Group)
• Mr Christian Neveu, Chairman of HFWG (Human Factors Working Group)
• Mr Hans Vogt, Chairman of IRSN (International Railway Safety Network)

Mrs Isabelle Fonverne, UIC Senior Safety Advisor, presented level crossing safety activities. She gave feedback on ILCAD 2017 www.ilcad.org and reported on the SAFER-LC EU project coordinated by UIC (Security and Safety divisions).

Finally, Mr Jerzy Wisniewski, Director of the UIC Fundamental Values Department, reported on the three-year UIC work programmes and on Safety Platform budgetary issues for 2018.

The next Safety Platform Steering Group meeting is foreseen on 14 November 2017 followed by the Safety Platform plenary meeting on 15 November at the UIC HQ.