Kick-Off Meeting of Rail-Ing Network Project was Held

The kick-off meeting of the project named “Vocational Network for Railway Engineers”, which was prepared by the “Turkish, Association of Railway Engineers” in the VET-Strategic Partnerships project type and accepted by the Turkish National Agency, was held in Türkiye on 16-18 June 2022.

The kick-off meeting of the project, which will be carried out under the coordination of the Turkish, Railway Engineers Association, was attended by the Croatian Railway Engineers Association board members, Certifer Germany and Certifer Türkiye General Manager and project teams of relevant stakeholders, Turkish National Agency experts, and TCDD Chairman of Board and General Manager Metin Akbaş, Deputy General Manager  of TCDD Transportation Inc. Erol Arıkan  also attended the kick-off meeting.

The meeting started with the welcome speech of Demühder Chairman Çetin Tekin, moderated by Çağdaş Görgülü. Demühder Chairman Çetin Tekin in his speech;

“Within the scope of the project, the most important output  we think to achieve will be the evaluation of the applicability of the certification processes of the engineers working in the Rail Systems sector by the independent evaluation institutions in our country.

System engineering certificate is given in the rail systems sector with the “EURAIL-ING” certification, an example of which is still being carried out in Europe and applied in various countries by the European Union of Railway Engineers Associations (UEEIV). Creating a roadmap for railway engineers to design a system within the scope of the international personnel certification standard by fulfilling the requirements of this certification process will be another important gain we will achieve in the project. The final goal we want to reach is to implement the certification system, the requirements of which we learned, for the railway engineers of our country. We will continue to increase our efforts towards this goal. On the other hand, the network established by our association in the scientific and social fields, whose effectiveness and competence in the civil society branch of our sector continues to increase day by day, and the potential that this network will create, excite us.” he concluded by saying.

In his speech, Goran Horvat, Chairman of the Croatian Association of Railway Engineers;

“The project excites us as the Croatian Association of Railway Engineers. We aim to produce quality outputs by making maximum efforts for all activities and project outputs to be carried out within the scope of the project. Also, we are very happy to be in Türkiye” and finished his speech.

Selda Bıyıklı, General Manager of Certifer Germany, who is the other partner of the project;

“As the Certifer family which one of the world’s leading certification companies, we are very happy to be in the project. We are always happy to cooperate with Türkiye. We are ready to make any contribution to the project, which will also have outputs at the European level.” she ended her speech.

Ercan Yıldırım, General Manager of Certifer Türkiye;

“We are proud to take part in the project, which is a new phase in strategic cooperation with the Turkish, Association of Railway Engineers. We support every effort to take part in similar projects in the future in order to improve our strategic cooperation. We have no doubt that the project will produce results that can meet the needs of the entire railway industry. As the Certifer family, he expressed his gratitude to all the experts who prepared the project, saying, “We are open to cooperation in order to support all projects that will take place in the Turkish rail systems sector and to increase the existing potentials“.

Finally, stating that Turkish engineers have signed on important projects, Akbaş said, “Great works that the world envy such as Marmaray, Eurasia Tunnel, Yavuz Sultan Selim and 1915 Çanakkale Bridge, which are also signed by Turkish engineers, have been built, and Türkiye has begun to be equipped with YHT Lines from one end to another. Türkiye is the 6th country in the world and the 8th country in Europe that has implemented high-speed train technology. Our YHT Lines have directly reached almost half of our population. Our work continues at full speed in order to disseminate this technology and to provide more citizens with fast, comfortable and safe service more effectively.” used the phrases. Expressing that the work of engineers in the 2053 Transport Master Plan is valuable, Akbaş said, “Our Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure emphasized the importance of railways in the 2053 Transport Master Plan and increased the number of provinces connected by high-speed trains from 13 to 52, 13 thousand 22 km. and it has aimed to increase it to 28 thousand 590 km. At this stage, the work of our esteemed engineers is very valuable to us. While the railways are experiencing a comprehensive development process, it is also extremely important that the railways comply with international standards and European Union regulations. The support and active role of non-governmental organizations in this harmonization process will also increase the quality of our human resources, which is the most important element of our corporate structure. ” he said.

General Manager Metin Akbaş concluded his speech as follows: “Vocational education projects supported by the European Union, besides seeking solutions to many problems with an educational point of view, also contribute to the preservation of the cultural heritage of deep-rooted organizations like ours. Railroading is the same all over the world. Today, we speak the same language professionally with the Croatian Railway Engineers Association, which is our guest in our country, and Certifer AEbt, one of the leading companies in the sector. This partnership structure, which came together in the project of the Association of Railway Engineers, will yield good results in terms of transforming existing knowledge and experience into added value with common mind and effort. I wish that this project, which will contribute to the training of human resources with international standards, needed by our railway sector, which is getting stronger and developing day by day, will be beneficial for our sector and our country. I would like to thank once again, especially the partners in Germany, Croatia and Türkiye, and everyone who contributed to the project, and offer my respects.”

After the opening speeches, Sabri Ekrem on behalf of Demühder, Marjana Petrovic on behalf of Croatian Railway Engineers, Selda Bıyıklı on behalf of Certifer Germany made presentations in order to introduce themselves to the project partner organizations.

In the last session of the kick-off meeting, on behalf of the Turkish, Railway Engineers Association, Sabri Ekrem made a presentation on the project presentation, project outputs, project dissemination and risk plans and exchanged ideas.

On the second and third days of the meeting, a technical visit was made to TCDD Taşımacılık AŞ Eskişehir Railway Training and Exam Center Directorate, and mutual experience was shared about digital applications. After the activities carried out with the active participation of all partners, the activities were completed after the work to be done until the next meeting was coordinated.

Rail Ing Network Project

The project named “Vocational Network for Railway Engineers”, which we presented to the Turkish National Agency as the Railway Engineers Association in 2021, was awarded a grant within the scope of the European Union Erasmus Vocational Education and Training projects.

Within the scope of the project, the certification processes of the engineers working in the Rail Systems sector will be examined by the independent evaluation institutions and their applicability for our country as well. System engineering certificate is given in the rail systems sector with the “EURAIL-ING” certification, an example of which is still being carried out in Europe and applied in various countries by the European Union of Railway Engineers Associations (UEEIV).

Within the scope of the project, a survey and research study will be carried out for the training needed by the engineers working in the rail systems sector across Europe to overcome the professional difficulties they face in their working life.

The project will last for 18 months and the project partners are Certifer Aebt from Germany and Croatian Association of Railway Engineers (HDŽI) from Croatia.

Project Website : www.railingnetwork.com