ASPHALTopcs | Summer 2017 | VOL 30 | NO 2

ds across borders
by Lisa Fattori
With various asphalt-related organizations around the world, a wealth of information is
at hand that can benefit individual contractors and companies in the industry. Sharing
new best practices, innovations in technology, better safety standards and new practices
and procedures raises the bar at both the local and national level. By learning from one
another, the asphalt industry can continue to be a leader in providing stakeholders with
value and quality, and to be the preferred choice for construction projects.
Asphaltopics reached out to two professionals who are spearheading exciting initiatives
within their organizations – Siobhan McKelvey, President of Eurobitume and Amy Miller,
National Director of the Asphalt Pavement Alliance (APA), who offer insight into the
progressive work and goals of their respective associations.
What’s a hot topic for your
organization?
Right now, LCCA is a very hot topic.
The competition is driving the use
of LCCA at local, state and federal
levels, and the asphalt industry
needs to be more active in informing
agencies about all of the factors that
go into the calculation of an accurate
analysis. We are not opposed to LCCA
usage in pavement type selection,
because there is long-term value with
the use of asphalt that can be shown
with proper life cycle cost analysis.
However, we have seen cases where
decision makers were required to use
LCCA, and were uninformed. We feel
it is important to relay the facts and
accurate data to decision makers.
Inputs, such as the initial cost of
a pavement, time to repair, user
delay costs and others must all
be considered. This can be a lot of
information for someone to absorb.
The proper inputs have to go into the
LCCA to make a pavement decision,
and we feel that part of our job should
be to present factual information.
At the end of life of a perpetual
pavement, for example, there is
structural integrity left; there is
some inherent value there which is
not typically identified in the LCCA
process. International Roughness
Index values also don’t come into play
with this decision, but it is important
to the end user. We want to make
sure that people have the necessary
information to make good sound
decisions on behalf of taxpayers.
Eurobitume
with Siobhan McKelvey, President
Can you provide us with a brief history
on the origin of your organization?
The European Bitumen Association, or
Eurobitume (EB) for short, was established in
1969, with five national bitumen associations –
ARBIT (Germany), CIB/ICB (Belgium), ESPAS
(Spain), GPB (France) and RBA (UK) – making
up the founding members. Several European
Petroleum Companies became members during
the next years. Benelux (made up of Belgium,
the Netherlands and Luxembourg) was added in
2007 as a Local Initiative and replaced Benelux
Bitume (Belgium, Netherlands & Luxembourg).
Switzerland joined in 2010 as a Local Initiative.
Can you report on the amalgamation across
Europe and how it’s working?
In June, 2015, members implemented a project
that integrated the three national associations
in Germany (ARBIT), France (GPB) and the UK
(RBA), within the overall operating umbrella
of Eurobitume. As a result, we now have
Eurobitume UK since January 2015; Eurobitume
France since September 2015; and Eurobitume
Deutschland since January 2016. These
add to the existing Eurobitume Benelux and
Eurobitume Switzerland. There were a number
of key drivers behind this change, including
the need to streamline our activities, develop
one voice and increase the profile/brand of
EB, develop and benefit from synergies, and
increase accessibility across Europe to experts
in our industry. We needed the organization to
be able to adapt and respond to changes and
challenges within the bitumen industry, and
to expectations from important stakeholders.
By building a stronger organization, we could
increase our influence and be the single point
of contact for bitumen issues in Europe.
To support our goals and to act with a stronger
voice in Europe, our members decided in 2015
that we needed to expand the scope of our
membership. Traditionally, EB members were
only bitumen producers with refineries. The
new membership now allows for an additional
category of Associate Members, such as
haulers, equipment suppliers, testing services
organizations and academic institutions.
What are you currently working on?
The necessary first step of our strategy was
to build a stronger organization and a new
structure of our association. The next step is
to review our Vision and Mission and to assess
what type of structure the organization should
have to meet the needs of the future. We will
be identifying the building blocks required to
achieve this in the coming years. In the second
half of 2017, a task force within Eurobitume will
examine this process, and plans to have some
proposals drafted to share with members by the
end of the year.
In the meantime, we will continue to develop
the General Meetings that we hold in the ››