"In the 150 years of Metro history, we are shifting into the 5th episode of fundamental changes, adapting to urbanization and related topics such as demographic changes or integration into urban networks" Howard Smith, Chief Operation Officer at Londaon Rail said in his opening speech at the international MetroRail Congress in Madrid. The congress was helt from 9.-11. April and dicussed integrated urban mass transit, CBTC Signalling, Smart Cities. criverless metros and of course security. To review the live repots from the conference please revise the related twitter posts via #mrailconf

Public transportation plays an important role in the lives of people everywhere - and as populations age this role will continue to grow. However, in recent years the transportation industry has become increasingly vulerable to security risks. One of the greatest challenges is to protect train stations, where the rail industry faces a crucial need to guard passengers, employees, goods, infrstructure, and asset against possible threats. These facitlities in particular have become at least as vulerable as airports. They must therefore meet very demanding criteria with regard to security, safty, communications, and building automation.

With regard to the new episode of urban mass transportation the challenge lies in blending stations to work together and make them efficient in the meaning of IT infrastructure such as ticketing, system networks and security. This complete integration of security, safety, communications and facility automation was presented on MetroRail Congress 2013 by Bosch Security Systems being one of 25 exhibitors at the Congress.

The three days conference gave a good possibility to learn from a diverse, influential and successful group of metro operators and senior industry executives about how to overcome the challenges posed by increasingly urbanised populations.