6 March 2019 | Brussels, Belgium

The future Directive on Road Infrastructure Safety Management showcases the importance of readability and detectability of road markings and signs both by human drivers and automated driver assistance systems.

The European Union Road Federation (ERF) welcomes this development as signs and markings represent a cost-effective road element that can ensure safe driving conditions while also providing the best guidance. This is especially important under adverse weather and vision conditions. Two dedicated ERF technical working groups, that gather main representatives of the sector, are constantly exchanging knowledge and investigating how markings and signs can optimise infrastructure performance under new mobility environments.

Since the publication of the 3^rd Mobility Package by the European Commission in May 2018, experts from different organisations have worked on the analysis of current solutions to ensure safe driving conditions.  As a result, the first set of technical recommendations to facilitate the recognition of road markings by human and vehicle vision is now published calling on the following performance requirements:

• Road Markings in night visibility should never drop below 150 mcd/lx/m2 night visibility under dry conditions and never below 35 mcd/lx/m2 under wet and rainy conditions
• The width of Road Markings should never be less than 15 cm
• Ensure a sufficiently high contrast ratio between marking and pavement (never below 3:1) to mitigate false readings caused by glare
• Facilitate harmonisation of markings design and layout across various countries

“We are glad to share expertise and successful experiences with the European Commission and Member States on how markings can better perform towards human and vehicle vision. For that, we focus our work on co-funded EU projects and several technical publications in order to ensure that the results reach as many stakeholders as possible including from other regions as the United States” commented Harald Mosböck, Chair of the Working Group on Road Markings.

3 October 2017 | Brussels, Belgium

On 21 September, the ERF, in cooperation with IRF and the TRB, organised the 5th European edition of the AFB 20 (2) Roadside Safety Committee on International Research Activities.  Co-chaired by Michael Dreznes and Francesca La Torre, the event gathered around 90 participants from industry, certification bodies, academia and road authorities.

The first session of the event was dedicated to new research initiatives linked to roadside safety including the durability of safety barriers, evaluation of soil conditions and provision of updated guidelines for roadside safety in European roads.

The second session focused on industry developments in roadside safety for both safety barriers and passive safety support structures.  It included, amongst others, numerical performance assessment of bridge anti-falling load systems and the development of passive safety cabinets based on EN 12767.

The event was concluded by a panel debate on ‘Transitioning standards into real-life performance’. The five panelists, representing road authorities, safety experts and industry, debated how current performances standards can be improved in order to ensure better reproducibility of results on the road.  In addition, the need for a more coherent approach for certification bodies was discussed to ensure a level playing field for the sector.