Symposium 2017 – Paris
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The 10th EAPA Symposium was held on 1 June 2017 in La Maison des Travaux Publics, 3 rue de Berri, 75008 Paris, France, close to the Champs Elysées, as a full day event with a networking dinner in the evening before. The symposium was accompanied by a small exhibition with 8 exhibitors and was sponsored by J.Rettenmaier & Söhne and Sasol Waxes. More than 100 experts from more than 17 countries coming from EAPA members, members of EAPA members, asphalt & bitumen industry, road administration and academia participated at the symposium.
Under the heading “Sustainability, Innovation and Communication in the Asphalt Industry” EAPA informed the participants about the latest news of the asphalt sector concerning current and future topics and provided an excellent opportunity for networking, information exchange and discussions.
During the day four sessions were held and the award of the “EAPA Asphalt Advocate of the year 2017” was presented.
EAPA President John Larsen
Session 1 “Opening and keynotes” started in the morning with the opening by John Larsen, President of the European Asphalt Pavement Association and two keynotes one on “New Procurement Systems in Europe with green content” by Harald Versteeg, Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands and the other on “Communication of industry themes” by the facilitator of the day Katrina Sichel, Belgium.
Facilitator Katrina Sichel
After the coffee break Session 2 “Health, Safety and Environment at EAPA” with three speakers took place. They talked about:
· Status-quo and outlook for the Rolling Resistance in Europe by Johan Maeck, Belgian Road Research Centre
· Environmental Responsibility of the asphalt industry (Report of the EAPA Committee Work) by Geir Lange, Veidekke Industri AS, Norway
· Taking measures for the Worker’s Health – Fumes and Dusts (Report of the EAPA Committee Work) by Christine Leroy, USIRIF, France
In the afternoon session 3 “Making asphalt roads and the asphalt industry more attractive” moderated by Katrina Sichel was conducted. This was an interactive session and draw upon the experience of the participants to develop, together, communication outputs that are accessible and meaningful for all actors in the sector. Structured by the moderator, participants worked in groups to design several communication tools for various channels (e.g. social media, events, media outreach). The participants were highly engaged in developing messages and had obviously much fun in doing this new kind of exercise.
In session 4 “Innovation and new technologies” the following topics were presented:
· Applied new techniques and outlook in asphalt production and paving by Seirgei Miller, University of Twente, The Netherlands
· Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Infrastructure by Manus Marrtinen, NCC Industry, Finland
· Rejuvenators for Asphalt Mixes by Knut Johannsen, Eurovia, Germany
After this session EAPA, in person of director Carsten Karcher, awarded for the first time the “EAPA’s Asphalt Advocate of the year 2017”. With this award EAPA honours a member that has demonstrated own initiatives regarding a better asphalt road marketing and that has demonstrated an outstanding support regarding the “Asphalt Advantages” campaign EAPA initiated together with Eurobitume, the European Association of Bitumen Producers. The award was presented to Horst Erdlen, Head of the Business Unit, Road Construction of J.Rettenmaier & Söhne.
Award Winner Horst Erdlen (right) and Dr. Carsten Karcher (EAPA)
EAPA President John Larsen closed the symposium in the late afternoon and thanked the participants for their support for this event.
Further information of the day can be found on twitter with the hashtag #EAPASymposium2017.