PIARC has established a Special Projects mechanism to enable it to respond to emerging issues and priorities identified by its members outside the usual four-year Technical Committee cycle. This year, PIARC Special project will cover the issue of carbon neutrality withing the road sector.

Reaching carbon neutrality is one of the main policy goals at United Nations level and in many countries. Transport must contribute, and can do that through reduction of transport demand, innovation, better usage of existing infrastructure, for example. We also need to consider the construction, maintenance and operation of the roads and the road infrastructures also have impact on the Greenhouse gas emissions and should be optimised to reduce their overall impact.

This project will analyse measures to improve the political acceptance of roads in a carbon neutral context. It will consider the contribution of road-positive strategies to carbon neutrality. The project will compare national policies on these issues. Special attention will be paid to all transport that uses roads: freight, public transport, shared transport, private vehicles, etc. The project should also consider the carbon footprint of the road infrastructure, road transport and the interdependencies between them. This should consider the construction, use, maintenance and end of life phases.

 Issues to be analysed include:

• How can road agencies influence a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions?
• What policies are already being implemented by road agencies (with a focus on infrastructure construction, maintenance and operation) to implement carbon reduction targets? What can we learn from those at the forefront of these efforts and their effectiveness in short and longer term?
• What further contributions can the road sector make towards carbon neutrality and decarbonization of transport in general without impacting the level of customer service delivered to our constituents? 
• Which current policy measures are causing social inequality, with a particular focus on cross-border barriers, business models and incentives?
• What role can public agencies play in increasing public acceptance of roads through behavioural change?
• Relevant innovations (at a high level)

 This project will establish best practice and set out recommendations for PIARC members to support them achieving carbon neutrality. It should also aim to establish high-level publishable material, including case studies as well as broad global greenhouse gas reduction estimates, that PIARC will be able to use.

 This call is described in detail in the call text.

For any questions, please send an email message to info@piarc.org

• Download the call for proposals "Carbon neutrality in the road sector"(Pdf in english)
• Download the template to submit proposals to "Carbon neutrality in the road sector"(Word in english)