Sustainable transportation


"Express Advices" on the quality of transport infrastructures
Publications




"Express Advices"
on the quality of transport infrastructures with regard to sustainable development


In 2000, the Regional Charter for transport infrastructures was approved by the Regional Council. This charter charges Arene with a mission to follow up and assist contracting authorities (territorial communities, transport operators, etc.) to take sustainable development into account on projects for the creation or rehabilitation of transport infrastructures.

In this way, by using its experience in terms of "Express HQE advice" for buildings, Arene Ile de France wants to inform and assist contracting authorities to take sustainable development into account in the conception, construction and implementation of their transport infrastructures.- a day for heightening HQE awareness with a presentation of best practices proposed to the technicians and the politicians in several municipalities of the Region. The awareness day is led by a specialist on environmental approaches to building, also with testimonies from other professionals. The programme for the day is set in close co-operation with the contracting authority. In addition to the description of the usual 14 targets of the HQE approach with the environmental management system, it proposes “à la carte” modules concerning specific topics of interest for the targeted group (10-20 persons): local Agenda 21 and spatial planning related to building operations, sports and leisure facilities, maintenance of social housing…

The agency has, therefore, developed and tested a specific advisory system:

• personalised timely advice during the construction or rehabilitation of a new transport infrastructure,
• neutral and transversal expertise on quality issues with regard to sustainable development.

 To achieve this, they have called on a multidisciplinary group of experts, selected after a call for proposals.

This is about being able to integrate requirements linked to sustainable development from the upstream phase of the project and to better formulate, organise and structure the demand for quality requirements in terms of objectives and resources needed.

"Express advice" procedure

• 1st working meeting - site visit - transmission of documents,
• Implementation of the files with the help of an analysis grid,
• Restitution meeting, discussions about improvements in terms of sustainable development, decision on courses of action,
• Submission of a succinct report,
• Revision of the experience of the project manager (questionnaire on the evaluation of the express advice).

Three French contracting authorities participated in an trial of this concept: the General Council of the Hauts-de-Seine for a tramway, the town of Villeneuve-le-Roi for a road repair project in a business zone and the General Council of Val-de-Marne for the planning of a bus route.

This test operation facilitated the production of two documents

• a question grid (6 major themes and 17 targets) on the quality of the infrastructure projects
• a list of examples of good practice that identify some interesting projects in this domain.

The interest generated by this initiative involving territorial communities in France suggests re-running an improved version of the device in order to respond to the growing demand to integrate environmental quality with sustainable development in transport infrastructure projects.

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Publications

		Title				Document			Download
		Info Fedarene Autumn 2005				4 p			122 Ko

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