11 September 2025 | Brussels

During its annual Statutory Meeting on Wednesday, 11 June, the European Union Road Federation (ERF) appointed a new President for the 2025–2027 term. Joseph Marra, from GDTech, will lead the organization, supported by newly designated Vice-Presidents Myrko Bellmann (Spengler) and Rik Nuyttens (Road Federation Belgium).

Upon his appointment, Mr. Marra stated:
“I feel honoured by this nomination. The challenges that the ERF will be facing in the future are reinforcing my dedication to fulfil the expectations of our members. They can be assured that I will continue to support the position and reputation of the ERF throughout my term.”

The ERF members also extended their gratitude to outgoing President Harald Mosböck (Swarco) for his dedicated service over the past four years, which significantly contributed to the ERF’s growing recognition and influence.

05 February 2025 | Brussels

45 European transport organisations have joined forces and are collectively urging national governments and the European Commission to maintain and strengthen a robust dedicated European transport funding instrument under the future EU budget.

With the upcoming discussions on the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF), the 45 transport organisations underline that the European coordination and implementation of infrastructure across Europe is more than ever crucial. It is the only guarantee for safeguarding the smooth functioning of the EU internal market and is instrumental to enhancing Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and military preparedness – the key EU priorities for the coming years. The Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta report reaffirms this as a crucial policy priority, underscoring how a well-functioning European transport network is essential to drive economic growth, job creation,n and cohesion in Europe.

Therefore, Europe’s transport sector is very concerned about the Commission’s plans to redirect a large part of the European transport funding towards National Single Plans. In the run up to the informal General Affairs Council taking place in Warsaw in two weeks, Europe’s transport sector in an open letter is asking the General Affairs and Finance Ministers to give a strong signal to the Commission in favour of preserving a solid dedicated European transport funding instrument under the next MFF. Such an approach ensures that the European budget prioritises investments of high European added value and safeguards a much needed long-term strategic and stable investment planning.

The open letter to the EU Member States, with the full list of signatories, can be found at the link hereunder:

Rent out your meeting room, training room or seminar room.

Half day: € 350 (VAT included)

Full day: € 600 (VAT included)

Maximum capacity: 20

Address: Rue Belliard, 20, 1040, Brussels

Any other costs (i.e. catering) are to be considered separate.

For more information contact info@erf.be

10 June 2021 | Brussels

Sofia, Bulgaria | 08 June 2021

During a special report on a main Bulgarian TV channel, ERF President explained the importance of traffic signs to ensure road safety especially in local municipalities last 27 February with powerful outputs until now.

Concretely, the intervention was followed by several alerts from viewers addressing the existence of fake road signs near the city of Tarnovo and other roads in the country. As consequence, an inspection was completed by the NGO European Center for Transport Policies (ECTS) proving the existence of very poor-quality signs with very low reflectivity completely illegible during night conditions. The material provider was obliged to replace several signs without additional costs for public authorities.

During last months, inspections have continued showing a considerable amount of road signs in the regions of Varna, Targovishte and Shumen that do not reach minimum technical performance requirements either. In addition, a road audit in the recently-built Plovdiv Ring was carried by the Road Infrastructure Agency and the State Agency for Road Safety with high interest from the media. As result, infrastructure experts from 3M participating in the action have accordingly proposed an increase of the reflectivity class of traffic signs that will be ready before this summer.

Further collaboration between our sector and road authorities is expected to continue by sharing technical know-how towards safer and fully-compliant infrastructure elements. In words of Rik Nuyttens (ERF President): “Our industry intensively works on developing the highest standards to ensure minimum safety conditions even under worst visibility and weather conditions. Alerts from both citizens and authorities after regular inspections stand as main collaborative element with our sector to identify deployment of poor signs that unfairly damage the industry’s reputation” 

More about the inspections in press: article 1 and article 2.

20 May 2021 | Brussels

On the 18^th May, the ERF joined the 7^th Road Safety Technical Committee of the Transport Community to describe main actions developed in the field and immediate strategic goals.

Road Safety remains a main priority for the ERF and its members since its creation. Under the leadership of four Working Groups (Road Restrain Systems, Markings, Signs and Work Zones), the ERF Programme gathers main experts from the sector with regular contributions to the discussions from external participants. In this sense, main outputs are the preparation of policy papers and technical recommendations, participation in EU projects and development of engagement activities with public authorities and relevant stakeholders.

Western Balkans represent a key region for the completion of the EU Road network. Especially during the next years, the Transport Community Secretariat will play an active role to ensure that road infrastructure will benefit from the highest safety standards in the world and support the reduction of fatalities while ensuring social cohesion and economic development in its six regional partners.

Further information about the Transport Community and its priorities in the road sector can be found here.

15 January 2021 | Brussels, Belgium

On January 14th, the new CEN Workshop “Assessment of the resilience of transport infrastructure to potentially disruptive events” kicked-off within the framework of the European Union FORESEE project.

The ERF will actively participate in the initiative that comes right after critical natural extreme events happened during last months as the biggest snowfall in 50 years that paralysed the transport system in Madrid, record cold waves in Benelux, or flooding that destroyed critical infrastructures in France, Italy and UK last autumn disrupting traffic flows for people and freight.

The CEN Workshop is gathering a group of experts from public administration, private sector, research and standardisation bodies to team-up during the coming months in order to develop a specific common methodology able to optimise resilience of transport infrastructures.

The first meeting served to introduce the working procedure and to appoint the governance body that included a Chairman (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) and Secretariat (UNE, Spain). It also approved the project “Guidelines for the assessment of resilience of transport infrastructure to potentially disruptive events”, which will provide a guide to determine, firstly, how to measure the resilience of transport infrastructure to potentially disruptive events and, secondly, how to set targets for resilience of transport infrastructure to potentially disruptive events both natural (i.e. floodings, heavy snowfalls, earthquakes) and manmade (i.e. accidents or terrorism).

Further information about FORESEE can be found here.

16 December 2020 | Brussels

On 15th December, the European Union Road Federation (ERF) organised for the first time an online Roadside Safety event.

This conference gathered more than 150 participants from all over the world and 18 speakers had the opportunity to present state of the art information related to the road restraint systems and other road safety equipment.

The event was structured over 6 different sessions, which addressed the following major topics:

• General Policy – EN 1317 and revision of the Construction Product Regulation (CPR)
• Materials and Performance
• Assessments
• Country case studies
• Roadside equipment and behaviour
• Bridges and inspections methods
• Vulnerable Road Users

Each session was followed by a Q&A session and there were very intense and professional exchanges between the speakers and the participants and a lot of interaction among participants, too.

This ‘première’ proved the commitment of the ERF to the Road Safety in general and the Roadside equipment, through the recognized expertise developed within its Working Group on Road Restraint Systems.

The event also opened the possibility to widen the scope to other Roadside Safety topics and its success leads us to plan other online events focused on Roadside Safety and other ERF programmes in the future.

The presentations and final programme can be found on the following links:

20 October 2020 | Brussels

The European Union Road Federation (ERF), Routes de France, the Fédération Nationale des Travaux Publics (FNTP), the European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC) and the Confederation of International Contractors’ Associations (CICA) organised an online conference “Shaping the Future of New Mobility”, chaired by MEP Dominique Riquet (Committee on Transport and Tourism), on the 14th of October, gathering more than 160 participants.

This event was the opportunity to present the main findings of the international comparative study dealing with the impact of new mobility uses on road infrastructure and its equipment.

The two panel discussions involved representatives from EU institutions, national administrations, notified bodies, R&I and industry. The key message of this conference is to consider road infrastructure in the new mobility developments – in terms of financing, innovation, regulation and technical adaptations, considering that the European Commission will soon unveil the EU Strategy on Sustainable and Smart Mobility in addition to the assessment of the future National Recovery and Resilience Plans. “Future mobility requires a common and inclusive cooperation -financial and regulatory – to offer the highest quality of service to citizens” said ERF President Rik Nuyttens.

To enable the deployment of new forms of mobility, and thereby meeting the Green deal’s objectives, the maintenance of road infrastructure is crucial. MEP Dominique Riquet underlined that quality infrastructure is a precondition not only for the shift towards new and cleaner mobility in line with the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Smart Mobility, but also for the global competitiveness of the European Union. To achieve this, a significant level of public investment is needed. In this regard, “investments in infrastructure are investments in a sustainable recovery” as FIEC President Thomas Bauer stressed recalling the urgency to bring the overall economy back on track.

The recording of the conference as well as the presentations given during the event are available hereunder:

8 September 2020 | Brussels

The European Union Road Federation (ERF), Routes de France and the Fédération Nationale des Travaux Publics (FNTP), in collaboration with the Federation of the European Construction Industry (FIEC) and the Confederation of International Contractors’ Associations (CICA) are releasing the results of an international benchmark study, initiated in March 2019. It covers 20 countries around the world and presents an overview of the impact of new mobility usages on the road infrastructure and its equipment, prior to the crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Please find the press release here

The full benchmark study can be downloaded in English here

The presentation folder of the study here

Final outputs of the study will be unveiled and debated during the online  conference ” Shaping the Future of New Mobility”  hosted by MEP Dominique Riquet (Committee on Transport and Tourism) on 14 October 2020. To learn more about the event, click here 

30 April 2020 | Brussels, Belgium

During an online workshop organised last week by IRF in collaboration with ERF and ASECAP, ERF Chairs of the Working Groups on Markings (Harald Mosböck, SWARCO) and Signs (Rik Nuyttens, 3M) explained the essential role of the road physical infrastructure in cooperative, connected and automated mobility.

With an average audience of 200 international participants, 12 speakers from different backgrounds (road industry, operators, technology providers, researchers) described how road infrastructure stakeholders will contribute to the new mobility ecosystem stressing the importance of mutual understanding and collaboration with other sectors. Presentations offered a full picture of challenges and exciting opportunities: regulatory and policy challenges, technological innovations, future workforce needs.

Experts presented the current transformation experienced under a unique momentum for several industries towards a more sustainable, digitalised, efficient, inclusive and safer mobility. In this sense, the 3rd Mobility Package of the European Commission represents the foundation for this spirit aligning two main legislative dossiers involving vehicles (General Safety Regulation) and Infrastructure (Road Infrastructure Safety Management Directive) while showing the way to further improve our sector.

The workshop also kicked-off a new partnership of ERF, ASECAP and IRF promoting the role of the road infrastructure for Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility. Engagement of the main three sectorial organisations will gather knowledge and expertise from partners active at EU level (European Commission CCAM Platform) and International level (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe WP1 and GRVA).

Europe is facing an unprecedented health crisis with a tremendous impact on our daily lives.

Following the measures and recommendations established by the Belgian Government, the ERF Secretariat has accordingly adapted its working routine by implementing a teleworking scheme at least until the 6^th April ensuring the same level of service.

Should you need to reach us, please find below the list of contacts with email and phone numbers.