As part of the UIC Latin America Region’s activities, in the first week of March 2024, an official visit to the various entities related to the railway development in Peru and Bolivia was held by Marc Guigon, Director of the UIC Passenger Department and Latin American Region (LARA) coordinator; Nicedolly Taborda, UIC representative in the region; and Vanessa Pérez Miranda, Senior Advisor for the Passenger Department and LARA Region.
As part of this visit, the UIC team had the opportunity to present UIC’s activity to high-level representatives of the national Peruvian and Bolivian administrations.
In Peru, meetings were organised with Raul Pérez-Reyes, Minister of Transport and Communications and his team, as well as with Verónica Zambrano, President of Peru’s public transport infrastructure regulator OSITRAN, and various CEOs from Peruvian railways such as PeruRail, Ferrocarril Central Andina, and Ferrocarril Transandino Los Andes-Mendoza.
In Bolivia, UIC organised meeting with important railway stakeholders, including Néstor Ríos Rivero, the Executive Director of the Telecommunications and Transportation Regulation and Supervision Authority (ATT), and the CEOs of Ferroviaria Andina and Ferroviaria Oriental.
Here, the parties shared information about the railways’ current status in the region, to better understand the needs and challenges that different stakeholders are facing in developing their railway activity. UIC was able to clarify how it would be able to help develop the numerous projects already underway and ensure that their progress will be even more efficient and sustainable in the future.
This visit formed part of the UIC LARA Region’s action plan to create a Vision 2050 for the area to foster the growth of rail in Latin America. International standards and disseminating knowledge are the two principal ways in which UIC and its international network of experts could support an increase in the number of railway projects in the region.
Furthermore, the region recently held a coordination meeting with representatives from the Columbian National Infrastructure Agency (ANI), the Argentinian State Railways (FASE) and Transport Safety Board (JST), and the Chilean State Railway Company (EFE).
In the meeting the members shared information on the first quarter’s activity and prepared an action plan to be drawn up in more detailed in the months to come. The plan is based on regional working groups dedicated to different subjects, including the Safety Taskforce, the Asset Management Group, the new Narrow Gauge Working Group, a Security Experts Network. These were launched in recent months and were presented by UIC’s Francisco Cabrera, Rosa Casquero, Paula Fernández, and Joo Hyun Ha. A discussion was also held on the gender balance at regional level.
The group will meet for the first Regional Assembly of the year in Buenos Aires, taking advantage of the fact that the International Level Crossing Awareness Day (ILCAD) congress will be there in June, hosted by JST in partnership with UIC.
For more information about ILCAD, please visit https://ilcad.org/
To find out more about the UIC Latin American Region, please visit https://uic.org/latin-america/.
