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Last update 29/03/2008

Lisbon and Gothenburg Agendas

This page explains how ROADEX contributes to the European Union's Lisbon and Gothenburg Agendas.

We have produced a video to present this theme - please go to the Videos page.

Principally the ROADEX Project contributes to the targets of the Lisbon and Gothenburg Agendas through helping to make the Northern Periphery a more attractive place in which to live and conduct business.

It has been a common theme in all ROADEX projects that the local road networks should be responsive to the needs of local communities and industries and that they should be managed innovatively for these communities to survive and be sustainable. With this in mind the ROADEX partners have not been content to accept the ‘status quo’ of the condition of the existing networks and have actively co-operated with other Partners, industry and research institutions in ‘triple helix’ partnering to develop new, modern, integrated technologies to better utilise the limited funds available.

The successes achieved are real, tangible and measurable. These include measures such as improved drainage strategies that extend the life of roads, the management of spring thaw weakening of carriageways, the innovative use of recycled waste materials in road construction layers and the targeted rehabilitation of damaged road sections through improved survey and analysis techniques.

These measures, and more, maximise the potential for local rural low volume roads and thereby help ensure the sustainability and competitiveness of local communities.

The goal of the Lisbon Agenda is to “to transform Europe into the world’s most competitive and largest knowledge based economy”.

ROADEX contributes to this aim by facilitating the sharing of existing knowledge between Partners trans-nationally and developing new knowledge bases to solve common problems through joint research and innovation. The project is also actively involved in the education and training of local managers and engineers in the newly developed techniques of managing low-volume roads.

Reliable and efficient low-volume roads, managed to meet the needs of communities and industry, offer real contributions to the attractiveness of peripheral areas for people to live in, work and make investments. These benefits in turn give confidence and economic stability to these areas so that they can to be able to contribute to the Lisbon Agenda desire for pan-European growth and social inclusion.

Good, reliable road networks also offer security to companies relying on road transport to take their goods to market and this confidence in the regularity to service markets makes it easier for prospective employers to invest and create jobs locally.

The Gothenburg agenda extended the Lisbon strategy by emphasizing the importance of sustainable development and the protection of the environment.

These are major issues also for the ROADEX partners and their local areas where the existing pristine natural environment is a key attraction for tourism. ROADEX addresses these vital issues for the Northern Periphery by challenging road managers to improve their management and operations of their low-volume roads to be more efficient in the use of money and resources.

A main platform in this exercise is the ROADEX III report “Environmental Guidelines” and its accompanying site checklist that have been translated into the 7 Partner languages (Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, English, Icelandic, Greenlandic and Danish) to ensure their maximum impact. The report gives guidance on how roads managers should deal with waste, noise and vibrations, dust and exhaust, contaminated soil, natural environment and water. This, and doing things correctly from the start, will help road owners plan their works so as to minimise the impact on their local environmental and get best use of the finite resources available tom them.

In summary, the ROADEX project is contributing to the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas through:

• maximising the potential of the existing road network;

• creating greater community confidence in local road networks resulting in more secure, sustainable communities;

• improved mobility and social inclusion through improved daily accessibility and reliability of journey times;

• reductions in haulage costs for local industries through fewer delays and weight restrictions on roads;

• environmental friendly road construction and maintenance practices;

• resource sustainable construction and maintenance practices;

• increased use of recycled materials;

• the use of environmentally friendly equipment in road construction activities.

We have produced a video to present this theme - please go to the Videos page.