Much work lies ahead

A meeting of the interstate technical committee on standardisation (ITC 524) has taken place as part of the VI Forum “1520 Strategic Partnership”.

In view of the fact that organisational and material changes in the railway industry are taking place in all the countries of the “1520 area”, new entities are emerging and the circle of suppliers is widening, the need has arisen to develop new technical regulations and the standards that support them. The current Forum “1520 Strategic Partnership” has hosted the first meeting of a new body which brings together international experts in order to create a single set of regulations for the “1520 area”. “A process of dialogue will enable us to find the optimal solutions,” noted Andrei Nedosekov, Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation. The committee will be responsible for developing new standards and harmonising them with their intra-state equivalents.

Valentin Gapanovich, Senior Vice President of RZD, reported that the leaders of all 16 sub-committees of the new body will be appointed during June. In 2011 alone they will have to develop more than 2,000 documents. It is important to adopt new standards, in particular in order to ensure unhampered introduction of innovations into the market. Introducing multiple unit platforms, cassette bearings, ballast less track, geogrids, hydraulic drive and other new technologies requires an appropriate regulatory framework.

One proposal, put forward by the representatives of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (Kazakhstan Railways), was concerned with not creating barriers to the entry of new technologies into the internal market of the Customs Union and recognising the results of tests in third countries (i.e. countries that are not part of the Customs Union) provided they conform to the standards of the Customs Union. In the event of a new product not meeting all the requirements, additional tests would be needed. Such a system would reduce the time it takes to bring in technologies. V. Gapanovich promised to set up a working group that would examine this and other proposals.

“We stand on the threshold of adopting a single set of interstate technical regulations,” emphasised Oleg Tkachenko, head of the department of metrology, technical regulation and information in the state rail transport administration of Ukraine. He also spoke about the work of the European Railway Agency’s contact group, which includes representatives of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic countries, France, Poland and Slovakia. The experts have selected seven areas for analysis: infrastructure, energy, signalling and communications, freight and passenger rolling stock, traction and operational compatibility. The analysis includes basic indicators for safety, the environment and other parameters. This work is important from the point of view of evaluating the technical compatibility of the 1520 and 1435 mm gauges.

Those taking part in the meeting recalled that the new technical committee No. 524 is the successor to five earlier committees and expressed the hope that the work of the new body would be more fruitful and effective.

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