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CIM Working Group’s second meeting of 2024 in Bern takes important decisions
The 37th meeting of the CIT CIM Working Group (CIM WG) was held on 26 and 27 November 2024 in-person at CIT headquarters in Bern under the chairmanship of Carola Folch von Sydow (DB). Before the end of this far-reaching year for the CIT Freight agenda, it was important that the CIT General Secretariat (CIT GS) engage in further-reaching thinking on members’ needs for new Freight products. With this in mind, the CIT GS proposed to CIM WG members to finalise the boilerplate contract and the clause on the legal relationship between contractual and/or successive carriers and substitute carriers.
New CIT Products for the substitute carriage model
This work aims to bring about far-reaching harmonisation enabling those CIT members using a boilerplate contract or standard clauses to achieve a uniform standard offering legal certainty, thanks to more detailed and standardised conditions than those in the CIT General Terms and Conditions (GTC for Sub-contracting). For the contractual carrier, a harmonised interface for the services performed by the substitute carrier can serve as a legal quality guarantee of the sub-contractors involved in rail carriage.
The CIM WG finalised this new harmonised boilerplate contract, which is applicable on an opting-in basis and represents the basic contract for the legal relationship between contractual carrier/successive carriers and substitute carriers under the substitute carriage model. In addition, a new standardised set of clauses in the Appendices, also applicable on an opting-in basis and to be included in the existing contracts used by CIT members in the substitute carriage model, will provide further legal certainty. Having been approved by the CIM WG, the two new products will next be discussed and endorsed by the CIM Committee in March 2025 and take effect on 1 of July 2025.
Report from the CIT Seals Expert Group to the CIM WG
This Expert group is tasked with further developing the international documents on the sealing of wagons so that the documents keep step with railway technical and safety requirements. The Expert group also seeks to promote the use of electronic seals in international carriage by rail. It met during 2024 on 19 March in Vienna and 6 November in Paris.
The Expert group’s work further relates to the publication of UIC IRS 40426 on 1 February 2024 and the updating of Appendix 1 GTM-CIT “Checklist for sealing wagons” to accommodate various wagon types. The latest update conducted took effect on 1 July 2024. On 19 November 2024, a joint CIT-UIC information session was held during the “Fit for Freight” conference at which all documents connected with sealing wagons were presented at length (UIC IRS 40426 and CIT product “Checklist for sealing wagons” Appendix 1 and “Sealing irregularities” Appendix 2 to GTM-CIT). For further information, see the dedicated article in this issue of CIT-News.
Revision of the CIM and CUV UR
At the invitation of the OTIF Secretariat, a CIT delegation attended the 6th meeting of the Ad hoc Committee as an observer to discuss and elucidate the sector’s position. The short-term aim of the CIT Strategy remains for the substance of the CIT suggestions to be addressed at the OTIF General Assembly on 25-26 September 2024 (variant A) or included in the OTIF programme of work for 2025-2027 (variant B). Following the CIT GS presentation and subsequent discussion among COTIF member states at the Ad hoc Committee, the COTIF member states unanimously decided to include CIT’s suggestions for revision of the CIM and CUV UR in the 2025-2027 OTIF work programme.
This decision was confirmed by the OTIF General Assembly in September 2024 and represents the successful achievement of variant B of the CIT Strategy on future revision of the CIM UR, which was developed with the support of the CIM Working Group.
In the meantime, thanks to CIT’s suggestions, the OTIF Secretariat has launched a new public consultations on the revision of the CIM und CUV UR (besides the CIV and CUI Uniform Rules). The CIT GS explained the suggestions and the strategy adopted for the OTIF Survey at the 37th meeting of the CIM WG, and after further CIT internal coordination will submit them to the OTIF Secretariat in good time before 17 January 2025.
2024-11-04, EE