MONORAILEX MISSION

The participants of the official signing of the Institutional act visiting WSW workshop facilities in Wuppertal.

MONORILEX-INSTITUTIONAL MEETING - WUPPERTAL

The Institutional meeting of the MONORAILEX Association took place on November 24-26, 2009 in Wuppertal, Germany. A three day program involved representatives of international organizations who participated in this unique event.


WELCOME SPEECH PRESIDENT IMA Mrs. Sumitra Iyengar

President – International Monorail Association

Dear All

It is my pleasure to welcome you all to this Institutional Monorail Association meeting.

I take this opportunity to thank all the members who attended the Dubai Meeting for proposing my name and accepting me as the Interim President of this wonderful organisation. It is indeed a challenge and also exciting to be part of the formation of this International Organisation.

Being obsessed with Monorails... In fact, back home in India,... people say.. God, don’t even mention Mono in front of Sumitra... She will start talking of Monorail, its benefits, the need for such a system worldwide, etc. etc... and once she starts, there is no stopping her.... I think that is one of the reasons that the ‘The Government of Karnataka’ India has approved a pilot track of about 17kms for Bengaluru...

The Agenda and way forward for an International Association was set out in Dubai on the 10^th of May during the Meeting on Monorail Cross Compatibility.

The target of that Meeting and meeting was to evaluate the enthusiasm and support for a Professional International Association for the Monorail operators in all sectors.

The details of the discussion will be presented by Jaap Ketal so I will not go into it.

What was heartening to note was the keenness and agreement by all on the need for such an Organisation.

If today we are here for the first formal meeting of the Association, it is due to the unstinted efforts of Jaap and his team from Brisk Events and Monorailex.

I would like to take this opportunity to present to you a few thoughts on the way forward.

·        We need to address the issue of cross compatibility of safety standards of the systems, this will ensure the implementation of Monorails as a systems solution for decongestion of traffic in countries across the globe

·        More players, both in the manufacturing and the civil & structural, should be encouraged to enter into this arena... competition is healthy and also gives the client a feeling of comfort in case there are some partnering or contractual issues

·        We need to promote the Association across the globe to encourage more organiszations to become members

·        We should also look at encouraging Governments as Associate members, they may not necessarily be operating Monorail, but this will encourage them to understand the workings of the Monorail and in turn consider Monorails as a viable intermediate system rather than maybe a Light Rail or Tramways in their cities where they are not compatible

·        We need to have more  awareness programme across countries that are presently considering entering the field of Monorails as Mass Rapid Transport Systems in their respective countries

·        The Association itself should become an accredited member of  International and National Organisations such as Union International des Transports Publics (International Association of Public Transport), etc.

·        Each member should promote the membership in their own countries and ensure that their Central; State governments and the various departments / stakeholders who are part of the development of Urban Infrastructure, Town Planning, etc. become part of the International Monorail Association. This once again facilitates the understanding, promoting and implementation of Monorail in their respective countries.

From here, we will be moving on to Kuala Lumpur. I thank Scomi Engineering for coming forward to support the next meeting at their home base. I am sure we are looking forward to the papers being presented and most importantly the progress made by Scomi in the R & D and marketing of Monorails across the World. Thank you and congratulations Scomi.

With these few thoughts I will close my address. I once again thank all of you for nominating me as the President of the International Monorail Association. It has been the greatest moment of Pride and Honour to have taken up this prestigious position, both as the Director of Geodesic Techniques and also as the First Woman and Indian to represent such an Organisation.

I hope today’s deliberations will result in some very positive interactions and agendas for the future of the International Monorail Association – IMA.

THE MISSION OF THE INTERNATIONAL MONORAIL ASSOCIATION

The INTERNATIONAL MONORAIL ASSOCIATION mission is to organize the global monorail sector, promote the application of monorail, publish information, and initiate and support standardization processes of monorail for public mass transport infrastructure.

WHY AN INTERNATIONAL MONORAIL ASSOCIATION?

To move people by monorail is one of the least used technologies by Public Transport. This is strange, because monorail has proven to be the safest and most reliable people moving systems of all systems.

MONORAILEX 2010 KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

The next Monorailex Conference is now planned for June 3 and 4, 2010 (subject to final announcement). For details go to page Conferences

Monorailex 2009 is supported by The Monorail Society http://www.monorails.org

Over 5,500 members, in 90 countries, on 6 continents.

The Monorail Society, founded in 1989, is an all-volunteer organization founded to foster more awareness and promote this unique method of transportation. Their aim is to inform people of the many possible uses for them. Monorail systems around the world carry hundreds of thousands of passengers safely and efficiently to their destinations every day. If more monorails were built, people would choose transit over the automobile in greater numbers.

Efforts of The Monorail Society (TMS) members have helped monorail gain more acceptance as an alternative to conventional rail, buses and cars. Several monorail projects in planning or under construction have benefited from the efforts of TMS.