International Union of Railways

The UIC (French: Union Internationale des Chemins de fer) or International Union of Railways is an international rail transport industry body.

The railways of Europe originated as many separate concerns, and there were many border changes after World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. Colonial railways were the responsibility of the mother country. Into this environment the UIC was created on 20 October 1922, with the aim of standardising industry practices.

Ticket revenue sharing was originally undertaken with the UIC Franc currency equivalent. UIC classification and UIC Country Codes allowed precise determination of rolling stock capabilities and ownership, with wagons assigned unique UIC wagon numbers. The 1990s GSM-R radio telecommunication system is an international interoperability specification covering voice and signalling systems for railway communications whose specification is maintained by the International Union of Railways project ERTMS.

The UIC's mission is "to promote rail transport at world level and meet the challenges of mobility and sustainable development."

The UIC's main objectives are to:

When founded in 1922 the UIC had 51 members from 29 countries, including Japan and China. They were soon joined by the USSR, the Middle East and North Africa. Today, the UIC has 194 members across 5 continents. Of these there are:

On 12 November, the UIC opened an African regional office in Tunis with the support of SNCFT.

In order to provide a common understanding and reduce potential confusion, the UIC has established standard international railway terminology and a trilingual (English-French-German) thesaurus of terms. The thesaurus was the result of cooperation with the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT/CEMT) and was published in 1995.

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