New railway connections are to be built from Oman to Lebanon and across Kenya, Uganda and the Congo. The new high-speed lines are to connect cities, which in turn want to expand local transport with new metro lines.

To drive all these plans forward, over 10,000 delegates from governments, the rail, rail supply, construction and finance industries met in Abu Dhabi at the Global Rail Transport Infrastructure exhibition and conference. Rail operators presented their projects and suppliers their solutions at over 100 sessions and 150 exhibition stands.

Security was a major topic, with infrastructure in this region requiring special protection. And not only against terrorist attacks, but also against sandstorms in particular. A large network of signalling systems, surveillance sensors and cameras in turn require a communications infrastructure, which in turn must be protected against cyber attacks. How communication networks can be better protected was therefore also the topic of the presentation ‘Urgent architectural imperatives in the face of cyber threats’ by onway CEO Beat Stettler at this conference.