RATP Group and JR East Sign Cooperation Agreement to Share Rail Expertise
On Monday, 27 May, Pierre Mongin, RATP Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Masaki Ogata, Vice Chairman of East Japan Railway Company (JR East) signed a cooperation agreement in Geneva at the 60th UITP World Congress to share their respective railway experience, expertise and best practice.
The cooperation agreement concerns operation, technology and rail systems. It also covers exchanges of best practice, analysis and personnel.
Several possible fields of exchange have been identified:
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– Energy and environment
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– Utilization of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
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– Transportation systems
Technical meetings between experts from both companies will be held regularly to identify works and deploy the requisite resources. A general meeting of senior management from both companies will also be organised each year, alternating between France and Japan, to set directions and assess the result of discussions.
RATP Group
With 12 million passengers transported daily, RATP Group is the fifth largest urban transport operator in the world. Thanks to its 14 metro lines (including two automatic lines), two regional express rail lines, four tramway lines and 350 bus lines, the multimodal network operated by RATP in the Paris region is one of the largest in the world. RATP Group exports its know-how worldwide, in engineering through its joint Systra subsidiary with SNCF, and in operation and maintenance through its subsidiary, RATP Dev.
JR East
East Japan Railway Company (JR East) was established in 1987, when the Japanese National Railways was divided as part of the Japanese railway reform. JR Easts railway business covers a 7,500 km network in the eastern part of the Japanese main island, including Tokyo Metropolitan area, and provides transportation services, comprising urban, suburban and high speed operations, for 17 million passengers on a daily basis. JR East also expands non-transport commercial activities, which account for more than 30% of the total revenue of JR East Group.