National Committees

of the World Road Association

AIPCR/PIARC – Activities at the 14th International Winter Road Congress, Andorra 2014

Location:Andorra la Vella, Andorra

Date: 4th– 7th February 2014

Agenda:presentations of PIARC National committees

Introduction

Participating at the Andorra 2014 Winter Road Congress had a twofold purpose for the Representative of PIARC NCs. First the intention and responsibility of the representative was to report to the ExCom about recent activities and developments in the field of PIARC NCs. Second is to enable the NCs to represent themselves to the general public at the congress, to promote their activities and open a discussion on topics of interest. Presentations may encourage other interested countries to form their own NC.

Activities at the congress premises

Before the congress, the PIARC General Secretariat had reserved a special booth at the exhibition centre, intended to serve as a promotional point for the PIARC NCs. The booth was arranged so that it contained a large TV screen for projecting power point presentations and some tables with chairs to serve the listeners.

Also some time before the congress the invitation letter was sent to all PIARC NCs to confirm and reserve their respective timeslot for the presentations. As timeslots were not enough for all NCs the reservations were made on a “first come – first served” basis. 10 NCs responded with the request to make the presentation and chose their timeslots. These countries were: Italy, Hungary, Australia, Slovenia, Japan, Austria, Canada-Quebec, Romania, France and Belgium. The presentations were to take place all days of the congress during the breaks of the Technical sessions, except on the first day of the congress when no presentations were planned.

Only at the premises itself was later discovered, that on the second day of the congress, Wednesday, 5th February (first day of NC presentations),the timeslot for the presentations would be overlapping with the Snowplough championship, organized at the Grandvalira skiing resort. As the majority of participants of the congress had intended to see the championship, there wouldn’t have been enough people listening to the presentations. Consequentially we have informed the Italian and Hungarianrepresentatives (due to have a presentation on that day) about the situation and offered to move their presentation to the more favourable timeslot. Hungarian colleagues agreed and Italian colleagues have decided to cancel their presentation as they were not able to change the time of the presentation.

On Thursday, 6th February, 3 separate sets of presentations were carried out. In the first set, Australia, Slovenia and Japan made the presentations of their national committees and certain winter service problems and solutions.

In the second set, representatives of Austria and Canada-Quebec made their presentations, highlighting some of the more interesting points in the history of their NCs and their winter practice. And in the third set this day Romania, Hungary and France made their presentations about activities of their NCs and their experiences with winter conditions.

The last day of the congress, Friday 7th February, there was only one presentation planned and successfully carried out, namely the one from our Belgian colleagues.

All presentations were well prepared and quite informative, especially welcome were a lot of images related to winter conditions on roads, from which one could learn a lot about what difficulties other countries around the world are facing in winter time.

 Closing

The presentations of the NCs in Andorra have been carried out successfully, however some issues need certain improvements before the next congress in Seoul, 2015. The main thing is that the position of the NCs’ stand (booth) needs to be more central in the exhibition area so that it enables congress participants to actually attend and follow the presentations of the national committees.

We must thank our colleagues at the PIARC General secretariat in Paris and the local organizers in Andorra for their best efforts in reserving the booth and organizing all other necessary things for the presentations to run smoothly in Andorra.

PIARC NC Activities – Winter Road Congress, Andorra 2014 p. 1/3