Since 2008, the twelve railway companies’ members of the “European Charter for development of social initiatives in stations” have shared concerns regarding persons living in highly precarious circumstances in the stations. Indeed, the presence of such a public is challenging the usual practices of railway agents in stations (service agents, security agents, maintenance agents, cleaning agents etc.).Several issues are common. Firstly, the agents working in station feel, more often than not, helpless when dealing with homeless persons. They express an urgent need of information on homeless people’s situation and training regarding the existing social intervention schemes and techniques. Secondly, the programmes already implemented in the railway companies have not been made durables or capitalised. Co-construction is at the heart of the “TRAIN in Stations” project. Its goal is to create and implement a common training programme, on the basis of what already exists and on the development of truly innovative modules, built from a common reflection shared by all the actors intervening in stations.The project aims at preparing the first European class on social intervention in stations, and to implement and evaluate a first training session in each company.Seven entities from five European countries are members of this project. Five railway companies, Bulgaria (National Railway Infrastructure Company), France (Société Nationale des Chemin de fer Français), Italy (Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane) and Luxemburg (Société nationale des chemins de fer luxembourgeois) and two NGOs : the Italian social cooperative Europe Consluting Onlus and the French non-governmental organisation Agence Nouvelle des Solidarités Actives. Each of these entities has a strong expertise regarding training and experiences of everyday social assistance and management.The project “TRAIN in Stations” lays on several transnational and regular meetings. In a concern for good governance, several collective workshops will be organised every five months in the cities involved in the project (Luxemburg, Paris, Rome and Sofia). The objectives of the meetings are:- Sharing knowledge and goof practices among national trainers (site-seeing)- Co-constructing the training programme- Planning a steering committee meeting, with one member representativeThese five European meetings will address different issues of the training session in order to build together with the trainers and the managers the common training program, and with the help of experts on social issues in stations. These meetings will be built on a clear co-constructive stance. In that regard, the national and sectorial diversity will allow a truly comprehensive reflection regarding the current practices. It will constitute a great richness for the constitution of a common project, based on points of view and experiences sharing.In order to achieve this methodological aim, different methods are to be used: focus-groups with homeless persons, active sites-seeing (exchanges with local social actors), capitalising and reflecting periods and construction time around concrete supports (such as e-learning or trainers’guide).The emphasis on practices’ capitalisation and needs’ analysis will allow the development of truly innovative methods and tools, adapted to the different European settings. The use of e-learning methods will facilitate this process.For each company, training programmes will be implemented which should make professional practices change. On an European level, the “TRAIN in Stations” project should steer and innovative dynamics between European companies, especially the ones signatory of the Charter.In the long run, the “TRAIN in Stations” project hopes to disseminate good practices regarding training programmes on the European territory and create a positive dynamics vis à vis social care for homeless persons.

During the first year of the project, the following activities were performed: • Within WP1, the analysis of the state of art allowed to identify the main existing projects/studies and to collect data about current and future skills and competence needs in rail sector through surveys and interviews. Moreover, the analysis of the state of art regarded the existing methodologies for the skill needs assessment and monitoring and allowed to select the best methodologies to be applied during the project. • Within WP2, the analysis of current trends and future challenges, that railway operators and infrastructure managers are facing, was performed with a particular focus on cross-border rail traffic and language issues in cross-border operations. • WP3 worked on the definition of one or more possible future scenarios from the point of view of rail suppliers. The specific focus was on macro-trends such as autonomous train operations; technologies for the digital twins and virtual coupling; intelligent assets lifecycle management along its entire life; protecting the environment and the energy supply; safety and security; data analytics; digital rail industry supply chain management. • The identification of skills needs and competences of professional profiles focusing on profiles affected by digitalisation/bit data/cybersecurity as well as energy and environmental policies was conducted from the point of view of railway operators and infrastructure managers and rail suppliers. In particular, the analysis of stakeholders’ requirements regarding occupational profiles was performed with reference to the classification of the European Skills, Competencies, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO). • In WP4, a survey about existing educational and training programmes in rail sectors was developed and a database was built collecting data considering features such as the EQF level, the localization, the presence of mandatory/elective internships, etc.. Moreover, the analysis of the qualification standards with reference to the European qualification framework was conducted to identify a common approach to be applied in the project. Finally, the assessment of the distribution of the training courses suitable for the rail sector was performed with the identification of existing unbalances in terms of geographical localization in the EU Countries, EQF levels, and QS with indication of the applied innovative teaching approaches. • In WP5, the identification of criteria and measurable indicators to evaluate employability and career opportunities of training mobility and training mobility programmes is performed applying the RACER (Relevant, Accepted, Credible, Easy and Robust) method. • WP8 developed a multi-channel dissemination and communication plan with the definition of key strategies for project communication and dissemination, for both internal (i.e., project partners) and external stakeholders, with the identification of relevant dissemination tools and channels. The project website was built (https://www.railstaffer.eu/) with an easily recognisable graphic identity (including the STAFFER logo). • Within WP9, the Project Handbook was defined with all the information regarding the: administrative and financial procedures, the technical management, the project management and communication and the delivery of project outputs. Moreover, the Quality Plan and peer review table reported all the procedures to guarantee the quality of the project results. Finally, the members of the Advisory and Policy Board were defined.