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NEWSLETTER N°86
April 2020

Our Newsletter is published in English, French and Spanish.

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EDITORIAL
IN BRIEF
NEWS OF OUR NETWORK
#PIARC ON SOCIAL NETWORKS
PIARC PUBLICATIONS
UPCOMING EVENTS

EDITORIAL

Dear colleagues and friends,

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global health and societal emergency that requires effective and immediate action, and this has led PIARC to set up a Response Team, made up of experts from Technical Committees 1.1 "Performance of Transport Administrations", 1.4 "Climate change and Resilience of Transport Networks", 1.5 "Disaster Management", 2.3 "Freight", 2.4 "Road Network Operation / Intelligent Transportation Systems" and Task Force 3.1 "Road Infrastructure and Transport Security".

Indeed, road transport is an essential service critical to maintaining the movement of key workers, goods, supplies and services, and our roads have to remain operational. What’s more, the pandemic and its impacts are expected to last for some time [...]

>> Read more

Patrick Malléjacq
Secretary General

IN BRIEF

COVID-19 - PIARC’s response 

April 2020

In line with PIARC's mission to identify, develop and disseminate best practices and provide better access to international information, PIARC has undertaken several actions to help road and road transport professionals in these difficult times. PIARC organizes webinars on COVID-19, online surveys in order to best communicate with road and road transport experts around the world and identifies the activities of international organizations in relation to the pandemic and roads.

>> Read more

COVID-19: key lessons for the road community from the first PIARC webinars 

April 2020

PIARC has organised a series of Webinars to discuss the multiple and complex impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for road and transport administrations. Video recordings and copies of all presentation slides in three languages from the Webinars can be found on PIARC’s website. The first findings are very relevant for both high- and low-income countries as the Webinars included a diverse portfolio of presentations from countries throughout the world, including Argentina, Australia, Chile, China, Colombia, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Paraguay, Spain, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States of America. The presentations also touched on several different areas. The questions and answers session were very dynamic as well, with 208 individuals registered for the Webinars coming from 48 countries, showcasing PIARC’s global outreach and contributing to the exchange of ideas between experts.

>> Read more 

Discover PIARC's new Strategic Theme Coordinators for the 2020 - 2023 work cycle 

PIARC Technical Committees cover a wide range of topics including road safety, network operations, maintenance, finance, tunnels, governance, etc. They are structured in four Strategic Themes, each of these is led by a Strategic Theme Coordinator, who is a senior expert appointed by the Executive Committee. Discover the Strategic Theme Coordinators for the new work cycle 2020 - 2023. Each of them made himself available for a short video interview, which we conducted during the “Kick off meetings” that launched our work cycle.

>> Read more

PIARC at UNRSC bi-annual meeting

16 April 2020

The UN Road Safety Council had planned to meet in conjunction with the UNGeneral Assembly in New York but held its first web-meeting instead in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. PIARC connected to the meeting, together with 130 participants.

The agenda included discussions on the content of the UN Road Safety Agenda for 2030, as well as how to build on from the achievements of the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety that took place in Stockholm in February. PIARC could present its COVID-19 webinars and the possible impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on road safety was also discussed. UNRSC will pay close attention to road safety remaining a priority.

NEWS OF OUR NETWORK

PIARC participated in the International Road Maintenance Day 

2nd April 2020

The International Road Maintenance Day (#IRMD2020) was celebrated as every year on the first Thursday of April. It aims to raise public awareness about the importance of road maintenance and its economic, social and environmental benefits. PIARC Technical Director, Miguel Caso Flórez, was invited to present two PIARC Technical Reports on pavements footprint and on green pavements during an online webinar, highlighting that well-preserved pavements can significantly reduce the carbon foot print of vehicles using the road network (up to 10-15% reduction). This is important, because this is 50 to 80 times greater that the carbon footprint of building the road itself.

>> Watch the presentation of PIARC's technical director (in Spanish)

Kick-off meeting of working group 2 "Safety & Resilience" from PIARC Technical Committee 4.4 “Tunnels” 

8 April 2020

This working group is tasked with producing a literature study on resilience in tunnels as early as this year. It had planned to convene in Vienna, but had to organise an online meeting instead, due to the current pandemic situation. WG members reviewed a first draft that had already been prepared by the leader (Ronald Mante, Netherlands) and co-leader (Bernhard Kohl, Austria). They also reviewed the literature that exists on this topic.

>> Technical Committee 4.4 Tunnels

Polish National Committee organizes webinars on Covid-19 and roads 

April 2020

The Polish National Committee of PIARC has organized two online debates with contractors and the road administration in order to develop best practices for the pandemic period in the road sector. The Polish National Committee also conducts webinars e.g. on the history of road congresses or road maintenance. All online activities are available on the Polish Road Congress channel on YouTube.

>> YouTube page of the Polish National Committee (in Polish)

National Commitments exchange their experiences on-line 

16th April 2020

Due to COVID-19 PIARC National Committees must find new ways to act and cooperate with their members. A lot of activities were canceled or postponed. It has great influence one everyday life of our National Committees. For that reason, on 16th of April an on-line meeting was organized. Main issues that were discussed considered exchange of experiences on they operations in the new circumstances, what are the services that are provided to members, what are the requests of members to National Committees. In upcoming weeks, those online meetings are going to be continued.

>> More information on PIARC National Committees

#PIARC ON SOCIAL NETWORKS

The @PIARC_Roads seminars have addressed the good practices of:

Spain, Italy and Japan (25/03)
USA, the Gulf area and China (01/04)
Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Spain, Paraguay and Mexico (07/04)
Australia, Greece, Italy (08/04)

Go to http://bit.ly/IMT_PIARC_COVI...

PIARC PUBLICATIONS

Routes/Roads N°383 

The latest issue of Routes / Roads magazine (No. 383) of PIARC is available. Dedicated to the Eight Winners of the 2019 PIARC Prizes, it also reviews the latest activities and publications of PIARC. You will also discover the story of PIARC logo, a young road professional working in environmental technologies, as well as a portrait of the National Committee from Niger.

>> Read the magazine

PIARC note on the COVID-19 crisis 

PIARC has organised a series of Webinars to discuss the multiple complex impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for road and transport administrations. This note presents the emerging findings from the first four Webinars. They are relevant for the road community and may be useful to inform planning and operational [...]

>> Download the PIARC note on the COVID-19 crisis

Bridge design towards improved inspection and maintenance 

This report presents the outcome of an investigation into the design and detailing practices from various countries that are specifically directed toward facilitating the undertaking of future inspections, maintenance, and replacement of bridge elements. This investigation was undertaken by Working [...]

>> Read the technical report

UPCOMING EVENTS

PIARC Webinars

Reserved to PIARC members only; video in free access on our website afterwards.

PIARC and COVID-19 (in English) 

April 29, 2020

PIARC and COVID-19 (in French) 

April 30, 2020

PIARC and COVID-19 (in Spanish) 

May 5, 2020

PIARC and COVID-19 (in English) 

May 6, 2020

PIARC and COVID-19 (in English) 

May 13, 2020

PIARC National Committees

Webinar "Economic development and maintenance of the road network" (in Polish) 

April 29, 2020

National Committees Meeting

May 7, 2020
Online

Find all the events in the calendar! 

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