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Israel National Roads Company is preparing a national tender on energy saving. They are requesting assistance in gathering details on similar projects conducted worldwide. Topics of specific interest include, electronic dimmable ballast positioned in the lighting poles to dim the light power; controller in the lighting switchboard; a communication system and a central control system. Please fill out the questionnaire and return your inputs directly to Ruth Lancet [ruth.lancet@gmail.com].

Currently known as DG TREN, European transport policy and European energy policy has now split and each will carry their own DG and Director General. As a result, DG Eneregy will now become “DG ENER”, and DG Mobility and Transport will become “DG MOVE” (Mobiliteit en Vervoer). In addition to the new structure, the unit responsible for state aid has been moved to the Directorate-General for Competition, while EGNOS and Galileo are now part of the Directorate-General for Enterprise.

With regret we announce the passing of Dr. Ian McCrae who died suddenly on Friday, 12 Feburary 2010. Ian was Project manager of the FEHRL Scientific Board for the Rijkwaterstaat Air Quality Innovation programme and a member of the FEHRL Air Quality Working Group.  He also assisted with FEHRL's input to ERTRAC's Strategic Research Agenda and in project development. Our thoughts and wishes go out to Ian's family and friends. A Memorial Page where messages of tribute can be left, has been arranged by TRL.

The Danish Road Directorate (DRD) has announced the launch of a call for proposals opening today, 29 January 2010. The jointly funded programme of research on road infrastructure asset management is supported by thirteen European Road Directorates. “Effective asset management meeting future challenges” is a cross-border funded, trans-national joint research programme that was initiated by ERA-NET ROAD II (ENR2). The overall aim of the joint research programme is to improve the management of the European road network.

The final results of the EU-supported R&D projects CVIS (of which FEHRL is a partner), SAFESPOT and COOPERS will be presented during the Cooperative Mobility Showcase 2010, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from 23-26 March 2010. The Showcase consists of three linked events, a conference on the theme of cooperative mobility, live demonstrations on roads and highways in and around Amsterdam, and the i&CDrive thematic exhibition. For more information, download the Conference Flyer and the preliminary Conference programme.

YEAR2010, the Young European Arena of Research, is a scientific competition of young researchers (early-stage researchers) in the transportation field. YEAR2010 invites researchers to submit abstracts on-line through the following link http://year2010.fehrl.org before 1 March 2010. Fifty finalists will be chosen and will receive a cash prize of €200 each for their paper. They will also  be invited to attend the TRA2010 Conference in Brussels from 7-10 June 2010 to display their research in an exhibition space. For further information, please see the competition flyer.

The third announcement for the Transport Research Arena, taking place June 7th-10th, 2010, is now available. If you would like to to attend, please see the TRA Brochure for the Final Invitation and Registration Form.

The Dutch Air Quality Innovation Programme has concluded after 5-years of research. This project was coordinated by Rijkswaterstaat, the Netherlands’ Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management. The findings of this project on measures to improve air quality along motorways are now ready for distribution. The know-how has been built up in the course of a series of unique and large-scale practical trials carried out under the innovation programme. The brochure is available here.

Together with its partner organisations in the Lyon Declaration, FEHRL has recently submitted its first report developed by a Joint Task Force on recommendations for the future of transport research.  This builds on the 2008 Lyon Declaration, where the signatories i.e ECTRI, FERSI, FEHRL, EURNEX, HUMANIST, ISN and NEARCTIS committed themselves to work together on the deepening the European Research Area objectives in transport in order to address the Grand Challenges. 

Within work package 4 of the CERTAIN project, the main objective was to foster and organise clustering and knowledge sharing, support cohesion and promote excellence in Central and Eastern European Countries. The FEHRLopedia was developed to support this objective by providing a common place for dissemination and exploitation of results of clustered projects in all languages. For more information on how to use the FEHRLopedia, please see the newly  developed "FEHRLopedia Manual". In line with knowledge transfer and dissemination, a separate flyer on FEHRL’s practices, provides an overview of the different possibilities FEHRL has available in “Knowledge Dissemination and Trainings”.