NEWSLETTER N°98
June 2021

Gender and diversity issues in transport are important topics to many organizations within the road and transport sectors such as the World Bank, the International Transport Forum (ITF), the International Road Federation (IRF), among others. Like them, PIARC has recently decided to reinforce its commitment to address such issues comprehensively. In fact, our Executive Committee decided a few weeks ago, in June, to set up a high-level team which is instructed to develop a strategy to tackle promotion of gender inclusion and diversity across all activities of the Association.

At PIARC, it is our mission to serve the needs of our members and of the road community, and to ensure that roads serve the needs of all their users in their diversity. Diversity covers many factors including sex, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, among others. [...]

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Catch up on an unusual year of knowledge sharing on the impact of COVID-19 on roads and road transport! 

March 2020 – June 2021

Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe disruption of individuals’ lives, of organisations, and of delivery of services across the World. In line with PIARC’s mission to identify, develop, and disseminate best practice and give better access to international information, PIARC decided to use its resources to help the professionals of the roads and transport sector by organising frequent webinars about the impact of the crisis and gathering information from its network, thus creating a platform designed to provide professionals with the best information there is in these complicated and ever-evolving times.

Moreover, in a little over a year, 33 webinars were organised in 3 languages, 2 reports were published, and a survey was conducted, helping hundreds of professionals to gain information and knowledge in a time when it was most needed.

The last webinar of the series on COVID-19 and roads was held on 30 June and covered Disaster Management during a pandemic.

>> (Re)Discover all the webinars and their proceedings on the dedicated page of the PIARC website

Rediscover our exciting June webinars! 

June 2021

The month of June was characterized by many interesting and successful webinars for PIARC, the last few before the break.

• On 2 and 4 June, PIARC’s Technical Committee 1.4 co-organised a workshop from Berlin on climatic impacts and road resilience. Its objective was to address future transport issues through innovations in the areas of adaption to climate change, environmental protection, and risk management.
• On 3 June, a webinar on the Impacts of Covid on road projects was organised by PIARC’s COVID Response Team. It covered the opportunities and challenges of financing, procurement, transparency, and due diligence during a pandemic.
• On 15 June, PIARC and the Universitat Politècnica de València jointly organised a webinar on Smart Roads Classifications, the subject of their special project, the report of which is due in the second half of 2021.
• On 22 June, PIARC’s Task Force 2.2 held its second webinar on Electric Road Systems, with speakers from Vattenfall, VINCI Autoroutes and the European Commission, Contargo, DB Schenker, Meta Strategy Consulting, Scania and E.ON.
• On 23 June, PIARC presented the updated DG-QRAM software, developed by the Association with the support of several European countries.
• The last webinar of the series on COVID-19 and roads was held on 30 June and covered Disaster Management during a pandemic.

>> Access the proceedings of the PIARC seminars. Many more coming soon!

Take part in this short survey on Electric Road Systems 

Electrically powered vehicles are increasingly seen as a solution to reduce transport carbon emissions. One potential method of charging electric vehicles is through Electric Road Systems (ERS) – dynamic on-road charging. This survey aims to capture information and views of key stakeholders regarding the development and implementation of ERS. The survey is part of the research of PIARC’s Task Force, whose work aims to build and share a common picture of ERS development and potential implementation. Are you an expert on the subject and are you willing to help? 

The survey is available in English, French and Spanish, and should be completed by 16 July 2021.

>> Learn more and take part in the survey

Share your knowledge about Asset Management in this new survey! 

Share your knowledge though the questionnaire organised by PIARC to collect data for the work of Technical Committee 3.3 "Asset Management". The objective of this survey is to collect information about the current practices in road asset management in order to identify innovative approaches for asset management systems. The results will be shared in the next release of the “innovative approaches in road asset management” technical report issued by Technical Committee 3.3 which will be made available for free.

The survey is available in English, French and Spanish, and should be completed by 31 July 2021.

>> Learn more and take part in the survey

Share your knowledge on tunnel operations and send in your paper for the upcoming International Conference and Spanish Tunnels Symposium! 

Following the success of the 1st PIARC International Conference on Tunnels, PIARC and the Spanish National Committee (ATC) will jointly organize the 2nd International Conference on Tunnels and the VIII Spanish Symposium in the new Granada Conference & Exhibition Centre (Granada, Spain) from 25-28 October 2022. This joint event will bring together the knowledge and exchange of international experiences of PIARC in this matter together with the traditional Spanish symposium organized by the ATC every four years.

The deadline of the call for abstracts for the event is 18 July 2021 – if you want to take part in the event, the time is now!

>> Learn more about the event and the call for abstracts

Preparations for the upcoming World Winter Service and Road Resilience Congress are in full progress! 

The preparations for the virtual XVI World Winter Service and Road Resilience Congress are going well! The authors of accepted abstracts have now been notified and are invited to submit their full paper by 15 August 2021 on the dedicated website.

Furthermore, as with previous Congresses, prizes will be awarded to the best papers among individual contributions. The categories are as follows:

• Winter service
• Resilience
• Adapting to a Changing World
• Young Professionals authors
• LMIC authors

The partners for these prizes have been appointed, they are respectively: Italy, Russia, USA, Hungary, and Japan.

Good luck to all the authors!

>> Learn more about the upcoming Congress

Fruitful discussions with PIARC’s partners 

3 June 2021

On 3 June 2021, PIARC held its sixth Advisory Group meeting, which was carried out as a virtual event. The purpose of the meeting was both to communicate the latest PIARC developments with partner organisations as well as getting access to high-level policy expertise on emerging issues, such asLMICs, Gender inclusion and diversity as well as Social Equity. Interesting information and thoughts were shared, they will feed in the work of PIARC’s Committees and Task Forces and may lead to future cooperation activities. This time PIARC met with CAF, CEDR, China Highway and Transportation Society, EIB, FCDO/High Volume Transport Programme, FIA, FIA Foundation, iRAP, IRF, IRF Global, ITE, ITF-OECD, POLIS Network, TRB, UITP, UNECE and the World Bank.

The Advisory Group meets twice a year, and it is designed to provide an opportunity for PIARC and its partners to discuss strategic issues, share news and identify opportunities for collaborations with other organisations that are active within the road transport sector.

>> Learn more about PIARC’s partners

Join the upcoming virtual TRB Conference on Advancing Transportation Equity! 

The conference, originally planned in-person, has been rescheduled to 9 – 14 September 2021 and switches to an online format.

The conference will feature all areas of transportation practice and research, including those that address links between transportation and housing, telecommunications, health, policing, or economic development. Presentations will feature those working on the front lines of transportation equity and justice within community-based and non-profit organizations.

>> Learn more and register

Traffic Noise – Best Practice Guide 

This Best Practice Guide provides a summary of strategies and a suite of tools that are available to national road agencies to respond to traffic noise. It summarises the latest research on the health and economic impacts of traffic noise [...] 

>> Read it here

Adaptation Methodologies and Strategies to Increase the Resilience of Roads to Climate Change – Case Study Approach 

Climate Change is anticipated to have a significant impact on the design, construction, maintenance and operation of global road infrastructure [...] 

>> Read it here

Road Safety Evaluations Based on Human Factors Method 

The objective of this report is to instruct responsible road authorities on how to evaluate road safety quality along roads in operation, coupling the well-known reactive approach, based on accident data analysis [...]

>> Read it here