News

We hope you enjoy this issue of our e-newsletter which features a spotlight on the impact of the Storm Alex on roads and bridges in Europe with notes from RINA and Telespazio UK. We also take stock of our hugely successful Joint Virtual Workshop with PANOPTS, SAFEWAY and RESIST as well as our well-attended Stakeholder Reference Group webinar in October. Our Stakeholder Reference Group keeps growing with new experts and is positioning itself as a relevant platform in the sector. Its next webinar will be on January 21st, and you can find more details below in this newsletter. Thank you for following our project. Stay safe, keep in touch, and have a Merry Christmas.

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On the 30th November and 1st December, the European Commission together with ERTRAC and EGVIA organised the 4rd edition of the H2020RTR, an annual event to display results from road transport research in H2020 projects.

The online conference was divided in several sessions grouping projects with similar objectives and areas including urban mobility, ITS, logistics, connected and automated transport, etc. A specific session on infrastructure reliance gathered around 70 experts to listen presentations from FORESEE, RESIST and SAFEWAY. David Garcia (Tecnalia) and Jose Diez (ERF) represented FORESEE addressing the presentation and participating in the digital booth as part of the exhibition part.

The conference has been traditionally focussed on vehicles but the special session on infrastructure with a high number of participants is proving a strong interest on the physical infrastructure. Indeed, other players from the sector acknowledge the importance of the network towards a safer, greener, more digital and intermodal transport and mobility.

Policy and research visions at EU level confirm that future mobility relies on the resilience of the network and its strategic engineering assets specially when facing extreme unexpected events caused by the human (accidents, terrorism) or the nature (climate change, earthquakes, flooding, etc).

Full agenda can be found here.

More information about the conference can be found here.

Please contact Jose Diez for further details.

https://www.ertrac.org/uploads/images/Programme%20H2020RTR20%20FINAL.pdf

EGVIA, ERTRAC and the European Commission (eventinsight.io)

On the 10^th November, the webinar co-organised by H2020 funded FORESEE, RESIST, PANOPSIS and SAFEWAY displayed a full picture of the current status of the research in resilient infrastructure at EU level including not only technical developments but also describing the policy background.

In words of the European Commission, resilience stands as the horizontal element able to secure an efficient, safe, secure and environment-friendly mobility in Europe. A strong and resilient network will reinforce future EU goals promoting the social and economic recovery in the block especially considering the approximate €66 billion generated by the sector that currently employs around €11.5 million and concentrate more than €1 million enterprises.

Allocating EU R&I funding on the topic has confirmed to be meaningful not only in terms of facing the challenges caused from natural events due to climate change but also man-made originated as terrorist attacks or strikes that prevent an efficient performance of the infrastructure.

During the project presentations, panellists talked about identification of risk factors, use of digital and remote technologies (drones, satellites) to face disruptive events, management of climate risk hotspots, development of new materials, construction and maintenance techniques, structure health monitoring or improvement of links between different modes amongst others. Outcomes of the four projects will be achieved soon.

During the last 2 years, research has integrated elements and carried lab tests. Final step will be the real demonstration pilots in the TEN-T corridors (in the case of FORESEE in motorways and rail lines in Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain) that will give the visibility needed to convince public authorities (public procurement) and industry for the market deployment.

The last part of the webinar was dedicated to a discussion deepening into specific structural engineering elements included in the project that, while addressing the same H2020 topic, are perfectly compatible bringing the research to work as a coordinated system.

Presentations and full recording can be found here.

On the 10^th November, four H2020 collaborative projects (RESIST, FORESEE, SAFEWAY and PANOPTIS) will organise an online workshop on transport infrastructure resilience under extreme natural and man-made events (severe weather conditions, flooding, human accidents, landslides, etc).

The European Commission, through the Executive Agency INEA, has set as priority to ensure free movement of goods and people under those critical circumstances for the mobility providing dedicated R&I funding. Research projects are focusing on developing new materials and technologies but also on optimising maintenance protocols that will help the transition of the sector towards climate change adaptation and sustainable development acceleration.

The coming workshop will animate discussions to share knowledge and successful experiences in the development of a solution for a more resilient, more seamless and safer European transport infrastructure with experts from the four projects and external stakeholders.

Transport managers, owners, operators, constructors, researchers, academia and other experts will discuss how the four projects can contribute to achieve such an ambitious objective.

Agenda: click here

Free Registration: here

About the four projects:

• Resiste Project (GA No 769066) – to increase the resilience of seamless transport operation to extreme events, protecting the users of the European transport infrastructure and providing optimal information to the operators and users of the transport infrastructure.
• FORESEE project (GA No 769373) – to develop a toolkit to improve road and rail asset management schemes for authorities and infrastructure operators.
• SAFEWAY project (GA No 769255) – to design, validate and implement holistic methods, strategies, tools and technical interventions to significantly increase the resilience of inland transport infrastructure by reducing their vulnerability to failure in extreme events.
• PANOPTIS project (GA No 769129) – to improve the resiliency (ability to adapt) of the road infrastructures and ensuring reliable network availability under unfavourable conditions, such as extreme weather, landslides, and earthquakes.

On 27 October, the Stakeholders’ Reference Group of FORESEE will organise a second workshop focussing on new materials and systems towards resilient transport infrastructures.

The objective of this workshop is to discuss how those elements can serve as potential adaptation measures to mitigate climate change and manmade-threats in transport infrastructures (railways and roads), improving their resilience and safety while reducing risks and users’ risk perception.

Transport managers, owners, operators, constructors, researchers and academia will share knowledge and latest practices during two sessions:

• Slope stabilization-protection systems in roads and railways
• Sustainable drainage systems.

In session 1, an overview of flexible stabilization systems based on anchored membranes and the main characteristics of rock fall barriers, as slope protection system, will be presented. After this, the last results of FORESEE project regarding the development of a new flexible system based on the combination of two membranes, some considerations on surface drainage at slopes and a new computer simulation method applied in flexible system designing will be presented.

In Session 2, a new methodology for improving the estimation of return periods of flooding, an overview of sustainable drainage systems and a set of guidelines and strategies for the application in transport infrastructures and, finally, some developments in porous asphalt mixtures will be shown.

The workshop will end with a Round Table to exchange views between infrastructure transport stakeholders (roads and railways).

Should you be interested to join the debate, please contact Jesús Rodriguez (SRG chairman).
[email protected]

Agenda: click here

As part of the pre-standarisation roadmap, ETH Zurich has been invited to introduce FORESEE in several standardisation meetings at CEN and ISO levels since June.

The main interest of the European and International Technical Committees relies on how the project is developing guidelines to measure and set targets for the levels of service and resilience in transport infrastructures during extreme natural hazards.

To identify topics that could improve current standarisation framework, the consortium is being assisted by UNE that, together with the project partners and leaded by ERF, are matching the research to current framework. In this sense, FORESEE experts will further develop investigations on specific elements related to climate change adaptation, civil engineering works and its level of performance including preventive maintenance techniques and deployment of new materials.

Outputs of the FORESEE pre-standarisation route are key to facilitate future market deployment and uptake of the toolkit. As well, the six demonstrations will provide complementary data to prepare a successful output matching the most demanding technical standards.

The potential impacts of temperatures on the Spanish railway network (16.000 km) are analysed in terms of average track buckling failures until 2100. The approach addresses the frequency of future buckling events considering the spatial and temporal distribution to establish trends between climate projections and track buckling events stressing the importance of planning and maintenance operations.

Full study can be downloaded here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235214652030106X

This edition features articles on the progress of different tasks related to Data acquisition, collection, integration and management system (WP2 by Telespazio), Adaptation Strategies for the Transition towards Sustainable Drainage Systems (WP3 by CEMOSA) and Facilitation of Market Deployment of FORESEE results through Standarization (WP8 by ERF). In addition, two interviews are featured with FERROVIAL and AISCAT experts together with a new FORESEE Video in this informative third newsletter from the project.

The FORESEE newsletter has been edited and prepared by FAC.

Read the full stories here: https://spark.adobe.com/page/D0nJAqTk4Dldp/