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The project TYROSAFE (Tyre and Road surface Optimisation for Skid resistance And Further Effects) is a Coordination and Support Action funded by the European Seventh Framework Programme. The project has addressed the lack of awareness of the importance and contribution of skidding resistance to safety, the lack of harmonised systems for comparing skidding resistance (even within member states), and the concern over conflicts with other important characteristics of road surfaces. The project, which began in July 2008 and runs to July 2010 has been carried out by a consortium comprising AIT (Austrian Institute of Technology), BASt from Germany, LCPC from France, RWS from the Netherlands, TRL from the United Kingdom, ZAG from Slovenia and FEHRL, the Forum of European Highway Research Laboratories based in Belgium.
This report gives an overview of the current state of policies for skid resistance, rolling resistance and noise emissions in Europe. These three road surface parameters are at different stages of development regarding policies and standards. For noise emissions, the attempt to establish common or harmonized methods has proved unsuccessful. In relation to rolling resistance, there has been a lack of national regulations because of the variety of measurement procedures and equipment. Rolling resistance has long been seen as a tyre property only and therefore the measurement methods for pavements for this property are still in their infancy. Although there is a common understanding that skid resistance is an important safety parameter, there is no formal European policy for managing skid resistance.
Following a widespread review of current practice and the state of development of measurement techniques, the TYROSAFE project has been able to make recommendations for general approaches to introducing a harmonised approach to policies for the management of skid resistance, rolling resistance and noise across Europe. |
