Report from the International Union of Railways workshop on 'The Impact of Covid-19 on Security'

The International Union of Railways (UIC) is the worldwide organisation for international cooperation among railways and promotion of rail transport at a global level. Founded in 1922 in Paris, France, it currently gathers about 200 members on all 5 continents, among them railway operators, rail infrastructure managers, railway service providers, public transport companies, etc. UIC maintains close cooperation links with all actors of rail transport, including industries, railway associations and public authorities. Within UIC, the Security Division contributes to anticipate threats and vulnerabilities to the railway system ahead of time (from minor daily crime to major terrorist attacks), to ensure comprehensive protection of railway activities and strengthening the resilience of systems and organisations.

On 17 June, the security division of UIC organised an online workshop focussing on the impact of Covid-19 on Security.

More than 50 participants from 20 countries in Europe, Asia and America participated. The audience was composed of security experts from railways as well as representatives from authorities, international organisations and European Commission.

This workshop complemented the meetings of the UIC Covid-19 taskforce which are taking place every 2 weeks, with special focus on the impacts of Covid-19 measures on security during and after the lockdown period. Marc Guigon, UIC chair of the Covid-19 task force composed of 70 UIC members and 18 International organisations, presented all the outputs of this task force and especially the produced guidances which demonstrate the rail sector RAILsilience (online at https://uic.org/covid-19/).

The goal of the workshop was to address security aspects of the Covid-19 crisis. The workshop was a great opportunity to learn more on the cooperation between railways and authorities in India (Railway Protection Force), Canada (Via Rail Canada) and France (French transport ministry). Then the impact on security of the crisis in Germany, Italy and Poland was presented respectively by security managers from DB, FS and PKP.

The presentations showed how challenging it is to have such a long crisis and to adjust the organisation accordingly, especially security skills which need to be adapted to the pandemic.

Partnerships with authorities is also a key aspect of the crisis, especially with regards to the enforcement of some measures such as wearing masks, social distancing or measuring the temperature of the passengers.

In many countries, the total number of security related incidents has decreased since the number of passengers was very low during the confinement period.  However, when resuming operations with enforcement of measures such as facial masks, more verbal or physical aggressions towards staff could arise.

The main challenge is to restore passenger confidence and to assure their feeling of security as traffic is resuming.  In this context, almost all rail organizations adopted a three pillars action plan; continuous prevention, communication and visibility of actions:

• Continuous prevention: rail organizations are continuing for the foreseeable future to apply the preventive measures adopted during the peak of the pandemic including disinfection and cleaning, enforcing social distancing measures, promoting hygiene best practices and avoiding overcrowding in trains and stations. Rail organizations are also actively investigating new innovative solutions to help fight the pandemic (new disinfection protocols, new technologies to facilitate the enforcement of social distancing, etc.)

• Communication is obviously a key element in regaining the trust of customers. Organizations are continuing to communicate updates and messages related to the Covid-19 situation at all points of interaction with passengers (starting from sales till the end of journey), as well as, launching specific communicationcampaigns to highlight the efforts made by companies to ensure the safety of rail transport beyond the regular measures put in place, such as investing in research to know more about the spread in transportation or the extra effort put in new technologies and the use of innovative solutions (e.g. enhanced ventilation, ultraviolet light disinfection etc.)

• Visibility of action: one of the most important strategies is to make the organizations’ actions and effort visible to the eyes of customers during their daily travel. Passengers seeing the staff performing the safety measures in real life plays a crucial role in regaining their trust, actions like active cleaning and disinfection, security personnel making sure that passengers are respecting social distancing and prevention measures, uncrowded trains due to a conservative sales strategy, etc.

Given the success of the workshop, which was very interactive with many exchanges between the participants, it was decided to organise another security dedicated workshop after the summer break to have an update on the situation while many railways are resuming almost fully operations.

If you would like to have further information, you can contact Marie-Hélène Bonneau (bonneau@uic.org)