25 September 2018 | Brussels, Belgium

Dominique Riquet, Member of the European Parliament, hosted the event ‘What place for the maintenance of infrastructure in the next EU MFF’ to discuss how the upcoming EU budget could contribute to make road transport infrastructures more efficient, cleaner and modern.

ERF, FIEC and Caisse des Dépôts Group co-organised the conference that gathered representatives from the road sector, financing institutions, infrastructure managers, national governments and European Commission. Panelists exchanged good practices and discussed how to invest funds more effectively and coherently, especially in a period with higher traffic volumes and huge backlog in maintenance. that is accelerating a prompt ageing of our infrastructures.

A considerable part of the road network in Europe was built decades ago, thus reaching now a critical age and creating real hazards for users. In addition, scarcity in public funding has originated an unprecedented degradation of the condition of the network mainly in local or regional roads and bridges. The increase of financial resources, especially in the next Connecting Europe Facility, Cohesion and Regional Development funds, represents the immediate and urgent solution for preservation and upgrading operations.

Participants agreed on the need of a comprehensive approach to preserve the transport infrastructure. This incorporates principles of asset management, planning, prioritisation and sound strategies of maintenance. New ways of financing and governance could also facilitate deployment of European policies. These ways should be based on circular economy, respect the environment, rely on research and innovation, digitalisation, take advantage of industry competitiveness while simultaneously improving mobility for people and transport of goods.

In the view of current inter-institutional negotiations for the future budget, the road sector calls on the European Parliament, Council and Commission to consider infrastructure spending as a key investment to achieve main political priorities for a better Europe.

18 December 2017 | Thessaloniki, Greece

On 3rd – 9th November, the School of Civil Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki organised the 2nd International Educational Seminar on Roads, Bridges and Tunnels. The International Seminar on Roads, Bridges and Tunnels (ISRBT) covered practical aspects of construction and management, aiming, especially, at enlightening the applied part of the engineering knowhow.

The ERF was invited to share its experience on European Transport Policies.  More specifically, Konstandinos Diamandouros, Head of Office at ERF, gave a presentation on the series of policies at European level which also have an impact on road infrastructure:

–          The European Road Safety Action Programme

–          The Revision of the ‘Eurovignette Directive’ on charging for the use of infrastructure

–          The Road Infrastructure Safety Management Directive 2008/96

–          The Tunnel Directive 2004/54/EC on minimum safety requirements

–          The impact on road automation on road infrastructure

On the latest topic, he gave an update on the conclusions of the report of the C-ITS on Physical and Digital Infrastructure which seeks to give an outline of how road infrastructure could adapt to court for the needs of autonomous vehicles.

ERF Presentation

More information on C-ITS

16 March 2017 | Paris, France

The French Senate Commission for land use planning and sustainable development has just released an informative report on the current condition of the motorway and road infrastructures in France. This report reveals the trend towards a degradation of the networks and warns about the mid- and long-term consequences.

According to Senator Hervé Maurey “once the degradation is proved, it becomes more costly and complicated to maintain the network, as the railway example has demonstrated: the State must therefore react in a quick and responsible manner in order to prevent the road network from experiencing a similar fate”. This report also contains the minutes of the roundtable organised on 8th February, which gathered representatives from the most structuring road networks – the State, the motorway companies, the Departments – as well as road sector industry and road users. This roundtable confirmed the absolute necessity of increasing the resources dedicated to the maintenance of the road network.

27-28 September 2016 | Moscow, Russia

The Forum is organised by J Comm LLP and is supported by the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, the Federal Road Agency, the State Duma of the Russian Federation, GLONASS and the European Union Road Federation.

The Forum intends to bring on the federal level the discussion about the growth of information technologies market and the existing system-wide implementation of intelligent systems into transport infrastructure.

The goal of the Forum is to consolidate opinions of all the participants of the intelligent transport systems market at all levels such as the federal road network, railroad transport, magapolises and the regions of the Russian Federation. It is essential to work out further steps to ensure cooperation between executive authorities, commercial companies, scientific institutes and international experts.

On behalf of the organisers we would like to invite you to take part in the International Forum “Intelligent transport systems of Russia”

For more information contact the Forum Director, Mr Anton Zhuravlev a.zhuravlev@jcomm.ru 

25 September 2015 | Vienna, Austria

On Wednesday 16th September 2016, the ERF, together with its Austrian Member GSV, the Austrian Platform for Mobility, organised an event on ‘The new rules of Public Procurement’ in Vienna.The new framework set up by the European Directives 2014/24/EC and 2014/25/EC on Public Procurement will strongly modify the relations between the contracting authorities and the contractor. These guidelines are intended to ensure a fairer and better quality procurement and should help get away from the lowest bidder principle, which had been preeminent in the past.

Further to the welcome speech of Mario Rohracher, Secretary General of GSV, An Baeyens, from the EC, DG Internal market, industry entrepreneurship and SMEs, made a presentation on the main features of the new Directives, insisting on their importance as a tool for innovation, a key driver for future growth. The transposition of both Directives in the different MS national law (April 2016) and its particular impact for smaller local authorities and SMEs is also a complex issue. Mr. Michael Fruhmann, Procurement Law expert at the Federal Chancellery, gave in-depth information about this related legal implications in Austria.

Christophe Nicodème, Director General of the ERF, highlighted the necessity of a more intense dialogue between public and private partners. After a presentation of some existing procurement best practices, a round table, moderated by Mario Rohracher, allowed the participants to debate and discuss about many issues related to the implementation of the Directives in Austria.

Check out the photos of the event here.

For more information about the event please contact Mr. Christophe Nicodeme.