STA SUB-COMMITTEE ON ROAD RESTRAINT SYSTEMS (RRS) PRESENTS FINDINGS AT PIARC WORLD ROAD CONGRESS
The Smart Transportation Alliance (STA) will be present at the XXVIIth World Road Congress, which takes place at the Prague Congress Center (PCC) in Prague, Czech Republic on 2 - 6 October 2023. STA’s Sub-Committee on Road Restraint Systems (RRS) will be presenting the findings of their work since 2015.
The Congress itself is organised by PIARC (the World Road Association), the Czech Road Society, and the PIARC Czech National Committee, with the support of the Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Road Association.
Dr Carlos Azparren Calvo, former Team Leader at the Technical Directorate of the Directorate General for Roads of the Spanish Ministry of Transport Mobility and Urban Agenda will present the results on behalf of STA. Participants of the conference are able to attend the presentation on 4 October, at 09:30 - 13:00 CET, during the Technical Session on Road Safety. The corresponding conference paper is titled “A voluntary safety excellence labelling: A way ahead for Road Restraint Systems (RRS)?”, and has been authored by Friederike L. Kühl (Programmes Coordinator at STA) and José F. Papi (President of STA & CEO at Etelatär Innovation) and will be published after the end of the conference.
The presentation is based on long-term research, conducted & fully funded by STA, on the testing and evaluation of the RRS certifying practices and whether they meet the minimum requirements defined by the EN 1317 standard for crash testing and verification of said systems (CEN, 2010). 11 STA members, distinguished academics and experts on the field have participated on this study. The paper documents and summarises a joint effort since 2016 and numerous rounds of crash tests and investigation activities.
The test results demonstrate appalling non-compliance with the EN1317 standard and have been further examined by independent certification bodies in order to safeguard their objectivity.
Ultimately, several actions will be introduced on how the quality of roadside safety barriers may be improved and road users may be protected, such as the introduction of an independent test house at the national or European level that inspects the effectiveness of the materials and whether the minimum EN1317 standards are met. For the short to medium-term, a voluntary excellence labelling is proposed to distinguish those products legally available in the EU market (CE-marked) with a higher level of quality and confidence for specific traffic conditions and applications.