About IRRB

 History

The International Railway Research Board (IRRB  ) is a project initiated by the UIC   World Executive Council aiming at developping all possible synergies in the field of railway research is the setting up of IRRB, under the chairmanship of Mr. Yshio Ishida, Vice-Chairman of (EJR  ) and WEC  .

IRRB had its first meeting on 21 November 2005 at UIC Headquarters in Paris with participation of the heads of research departments and institutes from DB AG (Deutsche Bahn), SNCF  , IR  , EJR, TTCI  , RTRI   , VNIIZhT  , Network rail (UK), CRC   (Australia) and AAR   (USA).

 Objectives

The International Rail Research Board has the following objective:

• To promote more effectively and efficiently, the Research and Development activities that are conducted independently and self-supportively by each UIC member railway company and UIC member railway research organization” (the “research institution”) around the world, so that they will be able to contribute to the development of railways around the world.
• To inform each research institution in a timely and appropriate way, of the content of the research needs and activities of each of the UIC Working Bodies (such as those of the Rail System Forum, Passengers Forum, and Freight Forum and the Platforms).To discuss common regional research needs and priorities. If the R&D in these areas is not being conducted at UIC, then IRRB will be able to make suggestion to start up the R&D concerned to the relevant UIC activity organizations or to engage in common benchmark and research studies in case of common priorities whenever members would regard this as beneficial.
• The IRRB considers and handles all aspects of the railway system on a cross-sectoral basis The International Rail Research Board in implementing its objectives will take on the following responsibilities and tasks:

 Main directions of IRRB activity

• To organise and facilitate for the benefit of each UIC member railway company and research institution, a broad exchange of information related to railway Research and Development undertaken at UIC and countries around the world. These activities are aimed to support the specification and prioritization of the issues and problems applicable to each situation as well as the related research needs, and thereby to make readily accessible to the interested parties the R&D activities (benchmark studies and research) of the fields concerned.
• To specify the fields which need to be standardized from among the railway Research and Development undertaken at UIC and countries around the world, so that each research institution will be able to propose to the international standardization organizations, or to their national and / or regional standardization organizations, the standardization of the fields concerned in a coordinated way.
• The promotion of globalization of the UIC Leaflets To specify the fields which need to be reflected in the UIC Leaflets from among the railway R&D undertaken in countries around the world, and to propose a revision of the Leaflets concerned to the UIC activity organizations responsible for the Leaflets concerned.
• Other tasks may be identified by the IRRB

NB: The issue of Intellectual Property Rights is to be taken into account in the implementa-tion of the work carried out by the IRRB and its working groups.

Every three years, the IRRB shall prepare a strategic work program, summarising the major targets of their work and describing the way in which the responsibilities and tasks will be organised and implemented. This IRRB Work Program will be presented to the General Assembly.

 Structure and Management Board

IRRB Chairman: Boris Lapidus

 Meetings

• 6th meeting Sendai, 23-24th May 2008 Link to the Presentations
• 5th meeting Paris UIC HQ, 5-6th December 2007 Link to the Presentations
• 4th meeting Moscow, 19-20th June 2007 Link to the Presentations
• 3rd meeting Paris, 5-6th December 2006 Link to the Presentations
• 2nd meeting Montreal, 6th June 2006 Link to the Presentations
• 1st meeting 21st November at UIC Headquarters in Paris Link to the presentations The first IRRB meeting addressed two important topics
  • improving safety at level crossings and
  • reducing maintenance costs of rolling stock.