Actors

The Life Cool & Low Noise Asphalt project is the result of a principled partnership between Paris City Hall, the civil-engineering firms Colas and Eurovia, and Bruitparif, a centre for technical assessment of the Paris region’s acoustic environment.

The Life Cool & Low Noise Asphalt project illustrates the pro-active policy in sustainable development and the living environment led by the Paris City Hall. It forms part of the noise-prevention plan for the environment, the adaptation strategy of the energy and climate plan, and the non-drinkable water network and use framework scheme.
At the crossroads of several professions, the Life Cool & Low Noise Asphalt project is implemented by several divisions and departments working together :

The Parkland and Environment Division (DEVE), to which the Urban Ecology Agency (AEU)—the project’s coordinator— belongs.
The Roadworks and Transport Division (DVD), with the Testing and Materials Laboratory (LEM) and the Territorial Roadworks Sections (STV) of the 8th and 15th arrondissements for implementing the project.
The Cleanliness and Water Division (DPE) and its Technical Department for Water and Sanitation Processing (STEA) concerning the spraying of water on roads.
The Finance and Procurement Division (DFA) for supporting the project financial set-up.

The EU’s funding programme LIFE (French: L’Instrument Financier pour l’Environnement; English: The Financial Instrument for the Environment) is the financial instrument for supporting projects relating to the environment and the climate. It is designed for public and private project initiators and seeks to promote and fund pilot projects, demonstration projects, best practices in new regions, and communication and awareness-raising initiatives in the different fields of the environment and the climate. For the 2014-2020 period, the LIFE programme offered a budget of over three billion euros on a European scale. The Life Cool & Low Noise Asphalt project was a LIFE beneficiary following the programme’s 2016 call for projects.

Bruitparif is a centre for technical assessment of the Paris region’s acoustic environment and fulfils three roles in the public’s general interest: monitoring; support for stakeholders in taking noise into account in public policy; and the raising of everyone’s awareness of the acoustic environment. Bruitparif also applies its expertise to testing innovative actions in reducing urban noise. In this regard, Bruitparif is an associate partner of the Life Cool & Low Noise Asphalt project. The organisation is responsible for assessing solutions produced by the firms Colas and Eurovia by using a system of measurement. Bruitparif coordinates the gathering and processing of tracking indicators to determine the associated environmental benefits (reduction in noise and the urban heat island phenomenon) and socio-economic benefits (improvement in the quality of life, sanitary and social impacts, value of real estate, etc.).

Eurovia is a subsidiary of Vinci and one of the world’s main players in the construction of transport infrastructures and industrial, commercial and urban developments. Sustainable development and the environment are at the heart of its innovation policy: more than 70% of its R&D budget is dedicated to developing technology and solutions to improve its infrastructures’ environmental performance. Since its incorporation in 2004, Eurovia’s international research centre has filed over 130 patents and developed around fifty products and procedures to improve the carbon footprint of road activity, notably in the field of warm coatings and in situ road recycling. The entire Eurovia technical network, made up of laboratories of delegations and countries, also forms part of this approach by providing a link between innovations, the reality of worksites and the expectations of customers. Upstream of the worksites, the circular-economy solutions developed by the network of Eurovia industrial sites and quarries favour local production and transport loops. They also help preserve natural mineral resources by increasing the share of materials derived from recycling. To save on resources, Eurovia already uses recycled materials—derived from dismantling—to make new infrastructures. As part of the Life Cool & Low Noise Asphalt project, Eurovia produced a hot-cast asphalt called Puma®.

Subsidiary of the Bouygues group, Colas is one of the world’s leading civil-engineering firms whose purpose is to promote transport infrastructure solutions for responsible mobility. For many years now, the group has been developing next-generation acoustic coatings to reduce traffic-generated noise pollution. In 2012, Colas tested anti-noise surfacing on the Paris ring road in partnership with Bruitparif in a project called “Harmonica”. To help preserve the environment, researchers from the Colas scientific and technical (CST) campus—the world’s leading R&D centre dedicated to roads—also developed solutions enabling ground fragments of former roads to be re-used on site while cold, the production temperature of coating to be lowered, and plant-derived components to be incorporated. As a partner of the Life Cool & Low Noise Asphalt project, the group has developed two innovative coatings that help significantly reduce traffic noise: BBphon+® and SMAphon®.

Other supporters of the project :

This scientific committee is made up of technical and scientific experts in charge of giving opinions, advice and recommendations in their areas of expertise. This committee ensures the interest and assimilation of knowledge generated by the project for the advantage of the scientific and technical community. Participants on the scientific committee include: The Belgian Road Research Center, CERAMA Nantes (the Nantes branch of France’s public centre for studies and expertise in risk, the environment, mobility and development), CNB (France’s national council on noise), IDRRIM (a French public institute for roads, streets and mobility infrastructure), IFSTTAR (a French public research institution in science and technology for transport, development and networks), Météo France (France’s national meteorological service) and Paris Diderot University.

The stakeholders committee ensures that the results are widely shared and works alongside the project’s partners on questions in the field of sharing and replicating the results. Participants on the stakeholders committee include: Acoucité (a French observatory in acoustics of environments), ADEME Ile-de-France (the Paris region’s branch of France’s national agency for the environment and energy control), Agence Parisienne du Climat (a Paris climate agency), the Rotterdam environmental protection agency (DCMR), Bruxelles Environnement (the Brussels public agency for the environment and energy), the Eurocities noise working group, the Lille European Conurbation authority, the Greater Paris urban area authority, ONERC (France’s national observatory on the effects of global warming), Florence City Hall, Madrid City Hall and Turin City Hall.

The Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Tomorrow’s Energy (LIED) is working towards making the project a success, as part of a CIFRE (Industrial Convention in Training through Research) thesis, monitored by the Roadworks and Transport Division and the Cleanliness and Water Division of Paris City Hall.