Mr. Francis Bedel

Chief Digital Officer
International Union of Railways / Union International Des Chemeins De Fer (UIC)

Francis took responsibility of the IT service of the Worldwide Railway Organisation (UIC) in 2015 and endorsed the position of UIC Chief Digital Officer with the development of the UIC Digital Platform. UIC Digital Platform aims at supporting UIC Members in their digital activities and developments on a worldwide basis and following the philosophy “Share, Open, Connect”. These words could be the motto which leads all his actions.

The Railway Industry is currently facing new digital challenges. Key words are today mobility interoperability, inter-modality. Francis and UIC Digital Platform are deeply involved in UIC mission and focus on the way to help Members to give every journey by train a touch of enchantment.

Francis started his career at French Railways SNCF in 1982, filling such roles as traffic manager and manager of freight stations.

In 1990, he joined SNCF’s IT Department to work on the rollout of a national project aiming to redesign the management of Freight wagons and, from 1993 to 1997, was responsible for the operation of Freight IT local bases.

Francis has been in charge of International Affairs for Freight IT at SNCF and among other issues, was European interoperability projects and ensured the relationships with the European Commission.

Francis was RAILDATA President from 2013 until the end of 2016. He is also active in many other international activities and projects.

Francis is personally committed for over 15 years in volunteer social activities and mostly in humanitarian missions in Western Africa focusing on childhood and education.

UIC is the worldwide organisation for the promotion of rail transport at a global level and collaborative development of the railway system.

It brings together some 200 members on all 5 continents, among them rail operators, infrastructure managers, railway service providers, etc. UIC maintains close cooperation links with all actors in the rail transport domain right around the world, including manufacturers, railway associations, public authorities and stakeholders in other domains and sectors whose experiences may be beneficial to rail development.

The UIC's main tasks include understanding the business needs of the rail community, developing programmes of innovation to identify solutions to those needs and preparing and publishing a series of documents known as IRS that facilitate the implementation of the innovative solutions