6 February 2018| Brussels, Belgium

The Road Federation Belgium organised in Brussels Kart the technical seminar ‘Your roads tomorrow’ to discuss future trends in road mobility.

This event gathered some 80 participants from the Belgian road industry as well as from the Flemish and Walloon Road Authorities and was highlighted by the opening speech of the Belgian Federal Minister of Mobility, Mr. François Belot.

The Director General of the ERF, Christophe Nicodème, was also invited to deliver a presentation on the investments in road infrastructure and the annual road statistics yearbook of the ERF. His intervention focussed on the need to develop a real cooperation between public authorities and regulators with the entire industry as a vector to put in the market cutting-edge technologies which are being tested presently under different prototypes. He stressed various EU Research & Innovation project with involvement of the ERF as HEALROADS for self-healing pavements, ALTERPAVE to deploy the circular economy framework or DURABROADS for greener, more durable and resilient infrastructure.

Making the Mark – ERF , RFB and Touring encourage Belgian road authorities to step-up maintenance of road markings

70% of road markings in good condition

26  July 2016 | Brussels, Belgium

Based on an inspection of more than 600km of motorways and ring roads in Wallonia and Flanders, the European and Belgian Road Federation (ERF and RFB) and Touring believe that efforts to render road markings more visible should be intensified.  ‘This is essential if we are to meet both the demands of road users and lane detection systems which are becoming commonplace in new vehicles’.

The Belgian road survey is part of a campaign by ERF and its members to promote the quality of road marking on major European axis.

For Flanders, the ERF survey has found that approximately:

–         70% of road markings inspected comply with the national specifications of 150 mcd/m2/lx.

–          20% of road markings inspected on should be marked again within the year

–          10% of road markings inspected should be renewed immediately

For the Walloon region, the ERF survey has found that approximately:

–          80% of road markings inspected comply with the old national specifications of 100 mcd/m2/lx (effective until 31 December 2015)

–          55 % of road markings inspected comply with the new national specifications of 150 mcd/m2/lx (effective as of 1 January 2016)

–          20% of road markings inspected should be replaced immediately

‘In view of an ageing population and the expected increase of lane assist functions in new cars and more  autonomous vehicles, road markings will actually become increasingly important in the foreseeable future’, explains George Lee,  Chairman of the ERF Working Group on Horizontal Signage.

‘In this sense, we are rather pleased about the condition of the road markings in both Flanders and Wallonia checked against their regional specifications.  While we were unable to cover the entire motorway network, we believe that results presented can provide an accurate snapshot of the situation on the main roads of Belgium’ continues Lee.

‘For Flanders, we are pleased to see that almost 70% of markings are line with what the authorities specify in the national guidelines.  In the Walloon region, we should highlight that the authorities took that decision to upgrade their national specifications from 100 mcd/m2/lx to 150 mcd/m2/lx in line with European best practice for main roads.  Checked against the new specifications, 55% of inspected roads comply with regional requirements, however, we are confident that the Walloon authorities will step up efforts in the coming months to ensure that the new rules in place become a reality on the ground.’

While welcoming the results, the ERF, Touring Club and RFB encourage the respective authorities in Belgium to continue their annual inspections and maintenance programmes in order to achieve even better results in the future.

‘From a user perspective, we are definitely please to see that a majority road markings on Belgian motorways are in good condition’ explains Danny Smagghe, Corporate Spokeperson of Touring.  ‘That being said, we encourage authorities to prioritise road maintenance so the situations improve in the near future.  In particular, we would be happy to see the current specifications in Flanders which apply only on motorways to be extended to all other A-roads as is the case in the Walloon region’.

– End of Press release –

Contact persons

Touring: Danny Smagghe, tel 02/233.24.78 of 0476/542.142

ERF: Konstandinos Diamandouros, tel 02-6445877 or 0496/497322

* The survey was carried out by a Delta LTL-M retro-reflectometer www.roadsensors.madebydelta.com/products

** McD / m2 / lux is the technical unit to express the intensity of light reflected back to the user from a road