Dear IFRTT Forum subscriber,
there are clear signals that Scandinavia is approaching the warmer period of
the year. The formal switchover to summertime, the five centimetres of wet
snow Easter Monday morning and myself being "decked and under cover" for a
week in a severe cold. All three indicators (formal, meteorological, personal)
are in place: spring is sprung.
On the European scene, there are several political road transport discussions
going on. As I expected a decade ago, focus is more and more on the carbon
dioxide issue and the accessibility of fossil fuels. This debate is two or
three years earlier than what I expected (there are large uncertainties in
the accessibility estimates), but still. There will be some extremely hard
questions for our politicians on what to regulate or not. This is a major
challenge that the IFRTT scientists have to react to and discuss in one
way or another, every percent of fuel counts.
On the more administrative side, the Whole Vehicle Type Approval for
commercial vehicles is approaching the political levels for final decision
after more than ten years of preparatory work. Simply put, once the
manufacturer has certificates of fulfilment of each of the forty or so
vehicle directives (power, smoke, emission, noise, brakes,...) any EU member
country may issue an EU type approval. Full implementation is still a handful
of years away, but this is one of the things, the common market administration,
that the European Union handles well. For some of the body and coach builders
this will require some new processes and consolidation and integration among
these will not be unexpected.
As a keen reader of IFRTT forum communications you have noted the second call
for papers for our May 2008 Paris Heavy Vehicle Conference. If not, you will
find this on http://hvparis2008.free.fr or indirectly on the IFRTT website
www.road-transport-technology.org
Contribute, participate and tell your friends! And we need more sponsors!
Drive safely,
Anders Lundström, IFRTT president
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