The history of Baltic Road Conferences dates back to 1932. Despite an hiatus of almost two decades under the Sowiet regime, in total 30 conferences have taken place. Once small regional gatherings have developed into large international conventions for hundreds of participants and presenters as well as exhibitors from close to 30 countries.
30th International Baltic Road Conference was organised as a fully virtual event on August 23-24, 2021. The event was broadcast from Riga and hosted 290 on-line participants.
9 keynote reports, 6 dedicated reports and 62 technical reports were delivered at the conference on the following topics:
- Future Mobility, Strategic Planning & Road Financing
- Road Construction & Innovative Materials
- Bridges
- Traffic Safety
- Road Routine Maintenance
- Smart Road Solutions & ITS
- Environment, Climate Change & Energy Efficiency
Conference Proceedings, published by IOP Publishing – a UK based society-owned scientific publisher, are available on-line on the website of IOP Publishing in section Journals: IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, as Volume 1202 HERE
These Proceedings contain articles that were submitted before the specified deadline, approved for publication by their authors and not rejected by the publisher.
Unofficial PDF volume of these Proceedings is available HERE
Abstracts are available HERE
The 29th Baltic Road Conference took place on August 2017 in the Estonian capital Tallinn. The conference histed 856 delegates from 34 countries, 70 companies took part in the exhibition, There were 101 oral and 26 poster presentations on the following topics:
• Strategic Road and Transport Planning
• Road Financing
• Road Construction
• Road Maintenance
• Road Pavements and Materials
• Road Safety
• Intelligent Transport Systems and Smart Road Solutions
• Bridges
• Environment, Climate Change and Energy
In addition, four technical tours were organized as part of the conference programme.
The 28th Baltic Road Conference took place on August in the 2013 in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. The conferences hosted 483 delegates from 25 countries, 97 companies from 14 countries took part of the exhibition, 105 oral and 12 poster presentations from 21 countries were given on the following twelve topics:
• Strategic Road and Transport Planning
• Road Financing
• Road Pavements
• Routine Maintenance
• Winter Maintenance
• Road Safety
• Intelligent Transport Systems
• Bridges
• Environment
• Scientific Research and EU Research Projects
• Human Resources and Competencies
• Communication and Public Relations
In addition, three technical tours were organized as part of the conference programme.
Conference papers and presentations(Link)
The 27th Baltic Road Conference took place on August in the 2009 in the Latvian capital Riga. The conferences hosted 529 delegates from 18 countries and 95 companies from 12 countries took part of the exhibition. In total, 76 scientific reports were presented in seven domains:
•Road Planning
•Road Construction
•Road Preservation
•Road Financing
•Bridges
•Road Regulations/Education
•Road Safety
Four technical tours were organized as part of the conference programme.
Conference papers and presentations (Link)
The 26th Baltic Road Conference took place on 28-30 August in the 2006 in Kuressaare, the regional capital of the island of Saaremaa in Estonia. More than 800 participants from 20 countries participated the conference. 72 exhibitors took part of the accompaning exhibition. The conferences covered six topics with 95 presentations in 15 sessions:
•Strategic management.
•Road management.
•Co-operation management.
•Bridge management.
•Tool management.
•Traffic management.
Three technical tours were organized to get aqcuaintant with local roads and discover of islands Saaremaa and Hiiumaa.
Conference papers and presentations (Link)
The 25th conference was held on 25-27 August 2003 in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The conferences was attended by 570 participants from 26 countries, 93 presentations were given on six topics:
•Road network management and financing
•Road development
•Road designing, constrcution, repair and maintenance
•Bridge designing, construction, repair and maintenance
•Traffic safety
•Impact of roads on the environment.
Two technical tours were organized for the participants.
Conference papers and presentations (Link)
The 24th conference was held on 21-23 August 2000 in Riga, Latvia. About 300 participants took part of the conference that offered a variety of topical issues including environmental problems, design and construction of bridges and roads, international transport corridors, repairs and maintenance of roads and bridges. Three technical tours were offered to the participants: 5 bridge reconstruction sites, 3 road reconstruction sites, 5 road and bridge maintenance sites and a modern exhibition Motorways 2000.
Conference papers and presentations (link)
The 23rd conference was held on 25-27 August 1997 in Pärnu, Estonia. The topic of the conference was “Rehabilitation of Roads and Motorways” and five key issues were under discussion:
•Asphalt Pavements and improvement techniques.
•Transport Policy.
•Road Data bank. Pavement management systems.
•Road technology transfer.
•Road maintenance.
The 22nd conference was held on 25-29 September 1994 in Birštonas, Lithuania. Main topic of the concerence was “Road and State” a variety of general issues related to road network development, road construction and maintenance to the information technology strategy, technology transfer activities, Via Baltica Project etc were adressed. Delegations from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Germany etc participated. The 22nd conference was the first one to be included into the calendar of the International Road Federation.
The 21st conference was held on 4-6 September 1991 in Jurmala, Latvia.
Main topic: reorganisation and financing of road management. Guests from Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Russia participated the event. A new section of the road museum in Šlokenbeka was introduced.
The 20th conference was held on 24-25 August 1988 in Tallinn, Estonia. Finnish specialists were invited to participate for the first time. The historic sequence of conferences was restored. The confernce included a tour to Viru District to see the road repairment work in Rakvere..
Topic: Social Progress and Rural Roads
19th conference was held in August 1985 in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Topic: General Road Development
Key issues:
• Road management planning
• Implementation of scientific and technical innovations
• Computer use
• Development of production bases
• Traffic safety
The 18th conference was held on 1-4 September 1982 in Ogre, Latvia. A visit to the newly opened road museum was included in the programme.
Topic: Roads and Environment
Key issues:
• Landscape planning of roads
• Environment protection
The 17th conference was held on 14-19 August 1979 in Tallinn, Estonia and Included a visit to the Olympic sites and Saaremaa island.
Topic: Quality and Efficiency
Topic: Achievements of high-category road building
Topic: Main directions of road maintenance
Key issues discussed:
•Productivity.
•Quality.
•Traffic safety.
•Production resources.
Topic: Main directions of road maintenance
Key issues discussed:
•Productivity.
•Quality.
•Traffic safety.
•Production resources.
•Soil stabilization.
Topic: Technical progress in road maintenance
Main issues covered:
•General plans of road development.
•Road maintenance.
•Traffic safety.
•Road surface calculations.
•Structure of road maintenance organizations.
Topic: New achievements in Baltic states road maintenance Focus on traffic safety issues. Had 15-20 participants from each country.
Topic: Acceleration of technical progress
Mainly focused on the following issues:
• Stability of embankments.
• Warm asphalt concrete mixes.
• Care of road shoulders.
The 11th (3rd) Conference was to be held in 1960. However, it was cancelled because of a three-year period of organizing conferences was established.
There were 42 presentations made (Estonia – 9, Latvia – 11, Lithuania – 7, Byelorussia – 3, guests – 12) on road design, building and maintenance. Hosted 80 participants from outside Estonia.
Had a good exhibition of the three Baltic States.
The resolution included the following issues:
•The Baltic republics should develop perspective programmes of road network development.
•The technologies of bitumen emulsion were important.
•Using local building materials should be expanded.
•Automatization and remote control of asphalt concrete plants should be implemented. •Industrialization of bridge construction should be increased.
•Mechanization of traffic density counting should be implemented.
•A list of necessary laboratory equipment should be compiled.
•An appeal was addressed to the USSR State Planning Committee to increase the production of road maintenance machines.
•Literature on roads in the native languages should be published.
General issues of the road branch discussed. Decided to hold conferences every two years.
The 9th Conference was to be held in 1940 in Lithuania. However, it was cancelled because of annexation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union.
9th (1st after-war) Conference was held in July 1957 in Rīga. It had speakers from Moscow, Leningrad, Pskov region, Byelorussia.
Main issues:
•Building of road embankments.
•Current issues of road surfaces and building materials.
About 30 participants.
Key issues discussed:
•Road section: the increasing traffic density calls for reorganization of the road network; dust binding on gravel roads and the maintenance of these roads by surface dressing; mechanization or road maintenance and common methods of traffic density counting.
•Bridge section: soil study problems, methods of periodic supervision of bridges and road dimensions.
•Transport section: problems of traffic safety and safe traffic propaganda, organization of bicycle traffic.
Included presentations by the three countries on the results of the past year. The main issues discussed were the following:
•Roads section: mechanization of road works, training of skilled workers, expansion of roads, liquidation of unsafe road sections and traffic safety on railway crossings.
•Bridges section: quality of inert materials of concrete, organization of preliminary study of bridge construction and the extension of working life of wooden bridges.
•Transport section: taxing and compulsory insurance of motor traffic, traffic safety, measures against drunk driving and safety propaganda.
No data survived.
No data survived.
Included many modern issues like the total weight of lorries, compulsory insurance of motor vehicles, traffic safety, winter maintenance and the banning of ice spikes.
39 participants. The work arranged in sections: road section, bridge section and motor transport section.
The Meeting was renamed into the conference; no more data survived.
First Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Meeting on Road Matters held.
There were 21 participants, the outstanding engineer V. Nemirovitch-Danchenko among them.
The agenda included the following issues:
• Mutual exchange of information on road network.
•Identifying international trunk roads for tourist traffic and the maintenance problems of these roads.
There were the following decisions taken:
•The roads are of great importance to the people; consequently, they must be passable throughout the year.
•The road maintenance service must be funded from specially allocated sums.
•All inter-state trunk roads must be of similar standards.
•In order to promote tourism, 6 border crossing stations between Estonia and Latvia should be opened at the same time.
•Data concerning road-keeping equipment and financial statistics must be collected for the next meeting.
•In case of regular motor traffic on roads and possible competition with railways, national priorities should be considered.
First joint consultations of the Baltic road specialists held.