This programme has focused on the following issues:

• Cost-efficient road management for the compliance with the demands from wildlife, including compliance with EU legislation, procurement and maintenance
• Cost-efficient mitigating strategies for roads and wildlife, including effects on populations of mitigating strategies and strategies for safeguarding the effect of mitigating actions.

The project has funded four research projects.

The primary outputs of this programme are available for download here:

1. The Call 2013 Roads and Wildlife End of Programme Report
2. The Call 2013 Roads and Wildlife Manual

HARMONY

HARMONY aimed to develop sustainable solutions to road transport challenges that are in harmony with wildlife. The project reviewed Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Appropriate Assessment (AA) and procurement practices across 8 reference countries.

Project results:

• HARMONY Project Description
• Deliverable B – Final Report
• Deliverable C – Environmental Legislation and Guidelines
• Deliverable D – Recommendations on Appraisal Process & Report on Consultations
• Deliverable E, Part A – Report on Procurement, Follow-up and Performance Indicators
• Deliverable E, Part B – Handbook on procurement and followup (incl. performance indicators)
• Deliverable F – Preliminary Maintenance Report Part A: Ecological functions of roads
• Deliverable G, Part A – Cost-effective maintenance to support the ecological functions of roads
• Deliverable G, Part B – Maintenance Handbook

SafeBatPaths

The project addressed a series of issues concerning the mitigation and compensation measures constructed for bats on roads.

Project Results:

• SafeBatPaths Project Description
• Hop-overs and their effects on flight heights and patterns of commuting bats – a field experiment
• Fumbling in the dark – effectiveness of bat mitigation measures on roads: Final Report
• Future research needs for the mitigation of the effects of roads on bats
• Bat mitigation on roads in Europe – an overview
• Effectiveness of mitigating measures for bats – a review
• Bat mitigation measures on roads – a guideline

SAFEROAD

SAFEROAD aimed to improve our understanding of the functioning and effectiveness of different road mitigation strategies in order to find the most cost-efficient way to reduce the impact of roads on wildlife and simultaneously enhance traffic safety.

Project results:

• SAFEROAD Project Description
• Technical Report 1_Roads and Wildlife_Legal Requirements and Policy Targets
• Technical Report 2_Guidlines for outcome-based specifications in road mitigation
• Technical Report 3_Modelling the performance of road mitigation strategies – Popluation effects of permeability for wildlife
• Technical report 4_Cost benefit analyses for wildlife and traffic safety
• Technical Report 5_Road Maintnance Guidelines to Improve Wildlife Conservation and Traffic Safety
• Technical Report 6_Guidelines for evaluating the performance of road mitigation measures
• Technical Report 7_Case studies on the effect of local road and verge features on ungulate-vehicle collisions
• SAFEROAD Final Report

ECOROADS

The ECOROAD is a partnership initiative that consists of the coordinators of the HARMONY, SAFEROAD and SafeBatPaths projects. The ECOROAD initiative aims to jointly develop a Handbook that takes the best recommendations from the three projects and harmonises them into consistent and coherent guiding document for practitioners. The new contributions will complement the recommendations already contained in the preceding initiative of COST 341 handbook.

The ECOROADS Manual was published in 2018 (see link near the top of this page)