Road infrastructure stakeholders recognise the need to adapt to latest innovation trends

19 September 2017 | Madrid, Spain

The Madrid Conference “Enhancing Research and Innovation in Europe: the road sector experience”,  organised in cooperation with the European Commission Representation in Spain and the EU Project DURABROADS on Tuesday, presented practical examples of how modernisation is transforming the most popular mode of transport.

As a response to demands by administrations and citizens for a more resource friendly mobility, the road sector has been developing several actions aimed at promoting low carbon solutions and innovation in the road infrastructure sector.

The first panel offered an overview of various techniques and alternative materials which aim to reduce the consumption of natural resources, energy and CO2 emissions, through the development of use of end-of-life and self-healing materials, biomass, and softwares to assess environmental performance.

Subsequently, the DURABROADS panel focused on the development of more durable and resilient asphalt pavements to better deal with the impact of climate change and freight transport. Concretely, the European consortium has researched into the combination of Warm Mix Asphalt with nanotechnology on the binder side, while using Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) and slags on the aggregate side. This resulted in the opening of a road section in Toledo (Spain) whose performance will be monitored during the coming years .

The third panel showed how public authorities will play a key role in a successful market implementation of these innovations and therefore the transformation of the road sector to the socio-economic and environmental trends which will dominate our society in the coming years.

Last but not least, the event also focused on the need for exchange of knowledge at global level. A representative from the US Federal Highways Administration described its collaboration with two research EU Projects (i.e. LCE4ROADS and DURABROADS) encouraging future partnerships.

All the presentations as well as pictures of the event can be found in the link below.

Agenda

For further information about DURABROADS, please visit the website:

DURABROADS website