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Introduction

Monday 4 January 2010

Standardisation is one of the most important aspects in developing an efficient, competitive and safe rail system. The UIC has considerable experience in this area through the production of our standards (UIC leaflets) and it is upon this basis that UNIFE and UIC have agreed to work together in the field of voluntary rail standardisation and have decided to jointly publish a series of standards called Technical Recommendations (TecRecs)

A TecRec is a UIC/UNIFE standard of which, the primary field of application will be the European rolling stock domain and its interfaces with other subsystems, and is the preferred solution by both partners for, in particular:

- Product and interface standards such as standardisation of component interfaces
- Publication of results of common research programs
- Acceleration and better influence over the European Standardisation works

Pending the publication of a European standard a TecRec will serve as a common comprehensive standard, approved by UIC and UNIFE and therefore recognised as a voluntary sector standard aimed at speeding up the standardisation process and thereby improving the competitiveness of the European railway system.

The general hierarchy within which a TecRec sits is in order of prevalence:

  1. EN elaborated by CEN/CLC
  2. TecRec elaborated by UIC and UNIFE
  3. Standards elaborated by UIC (leaflets)

Topics for TecRecs are selected according to well defined criteria under the supervision of the joint UIC/UNIFE TecRec management co-ordination group (TMT).
The partners will agree on a topic and will seek to develop those that are founded on a solid business case.

The TecRec drafting is either done in projects with joint UIC and UNIFE member participation or in dedicated TecRec working groups. The drafting process is then followed by a technical consultation at expert level and a formal approval stage at management level by both partners.

Once approval has been obtained, the TecRec will be published in the English language and placed on this website.
Priorities and resolution of conflicts are provided by a joint high-level TecRec Steering Board.

P.S.

Please find out more about this Memorandum of Understanding and TecRecs on www.uic.org and www.unife.org