From June 9 to 11th, the SafeTravellers consortium gathered at the UIC – International Union of Railways Headquarters in Paris for the second phase of the project’s Railway Pilot for three days of live demonstration of the SafeTravellers integrated mobile identity verification framework in a simulated rail carriage environment.
Following successful Phase 1 testing at these premises in November 2025, Phase 2 brought the updated system to a wider audience.
SafeTravellers is developing and validating an integrated framework for seamless and secure traveller verification at Europe’s borders. The pilots are a crucial moment for the advancement of the project objectives: it’s the moment when the framework leaves the lab and meets real operational conditions and where relevant stakeholders and end users – who will eventually work with these technologies – have the exclusive chance to test it and provide feedback that will help shape the final version, in a genuinely co-creation approach.
As an overarching representative of rail end-users, UIC was committed to bridge the gap between the project technological development and the operational needs of railway stakeholders that operate cross-border trains.
What was relevant and innovative in Phase 2 in Paris is that, for the first time, the technical team had the chance to present the full system rather than testing components in isolation. The full suite of ten technologies was deployed on the ground, covering mobile Digital Travel Credentials, multi-biometric verification, fraud detection tools and AI-assisted risk assessment, among others. Around 50 participants from across Europe took part: project partners, border guards, technology experts and UIC staff as traveller volunteers, running through the full mobile identity verification workflow in the simulated carriage. One hundred mobile and static checks were carried out producing valuable data and operational experience.
Structured feedback on usability, processing speed and traveller experience was collected throughout, feeding directly into the project’s final assessment. The programme also included live demonstrations of individual technologies, among them the BioPod solution in a fixed checkpoint configuration.
On the final day, representatives from the European Commission, Frontex, the Ministère de l’Intérieur and Eurostar joined as external observers, bringing exactly the kind of institutional and operational perspective the project needs as it moves towards its final recommendations. Their role was to gauge how the integrated framework fits the institutional and operational realities they each represent, from EU-level policy to frontline border and rail operations, and understand the potential benefits of the approach.
Pilots are never straightforward, and the team had to tackle complex technical issues during preliminary testing to ensure the demonstration proceeded smoothly. The pilot was able to demonstrate mobile checks in a rail carriage and static checks at an e-Gate system at a rail station. The underlying technologies that underpin the system were also explained and where appropriate demonstrated.
The simulated train border checks with volunteers allowed testing the project technologies for specific railway use-cases which would allow smoother rail journeys in a near future. The railway pilot is essential for the future adoption of such technologies by railway operators together with Border Authorities.
What made it work was the people, our consortium, who brought the patience, flexibility and commitment that this kind of work demands.
The SafeTravellers Railway Pilot, Phase 2, was just an intermediate step. SafeTravellers is now heading to Constanța, Romania, to test the framework in two other environments: a Maritime Border scenario on 7 July and a Land Border scenario on 8 July, with the Romanian Border Police on the ground. The two settings demonstratethe framework against very different demands: a maritime border, where verification has to work amid the flow and constraints of port and vessel environments, and a land border, with the challenges of in-vehicle checks.
Stay tuned for more!
SafeTravellers Railway Pilot, Phase 2: Three Days of Successful Live Testing in Paris
