IRRB has been re-established with the aim to further develop its activities. The 7th IRRB meeting was held in St. Petersburg on 5 July 2010, chaired by Mr. Yoshio Ishida, Chairman of IRRB, UIC, and Vice-Chairman of JR East. Almost all the original members of IRRB: AAR (TTCI), CRC for rail innovation, DB, JR East, JSC RZD VNIIZHT, KRRI, Network Rail, RSSB, and RTRI met in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg.

At this meeting, IRRB members held fruitful discussions on several important issues and decided on a new charter and a new chairperson.

Mr Yoshio Ishida’s chairmanship had come to an end, and following the meeting, Mr Joachim Mayer (DB) has been nominated as interim chairman until the official chairperson would be appointed by the IRRB members and ratified by the next UIC General Assembly in Beijing in December.

Mr. Yoshio Ishida cordially expressed that he would continue to be an IRRB representative from JR East and would like to contribute to the further development of IRRB under a new charter.

It was also agreed at this meeting that UIC would develop the strategic concrete paper on how to formally position IRRB within UIC and how to strengthen the relationship between IRRB and WCRR (World Congress of Railway Research) as smoothly as possible in the fields of R&D and standardisation, to be reported at the next UIC Executive Board in December 2010.

It was agreed that following the meeting, Mr. Dennis Schut and Mr. Koichiro Suzuki from UIC would develop this strategic paper.

IRRB is open to all UIC’s active, associate and affiliate members throughout the world.