Dear colleagues and friends,

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global health and societal emergency that requires effective and immediate action, and this has led PIARC to set up a Response Team, made up of experts from Technical Committees 1.1 "Performance of Transport Administrations", 1.4 "Climate change and Resilience of Transport Networks", 1.5 "Disaster Management", 2.3 "Freight", 2.4 "Road Network Operation / Intelligent Transportation Systems" and Task Force 3.1 "Road Infrastructure and Transport Security".

Indeed, road transport is an essential service critical to maintaining the movement of key workers, goods, supplies and services, and our roads have to remain operational. What’s more, the pandemic and its impacts are expected to last for some time.

The Response Team, which I am honored to lead, has organized the rapid sharing of knowledge and practices between its members on the impacts of, and responses to, the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic and social crisis. Among others, we have organized 8 webinars between PIARC members and Committee experts, in English, French and Spanish, and more are planned. We are also exploring the medium- to long-term implications for the organization of the roads and transport sector and are planning best practice reports and knowledge-sharing activities.

I invite you to consult our dedicated PIARC Special Webpage:

https://www.piarc.org/en/News-Agenda-PIARC/Coronavirus-PIARC-and-Covid-19.

Stay safe

Patrick Malléjacq