In his keynote speech at the 2015 Australian Asphalt Pavement Association (AAPA) International Flexible Pavements Conference in September, Keith Suter, futurist, thought leader and media personality, asked: where can innovation take us in Australia?
He touched on topics such as the need for long-term infrastructure thinking, how innovation drives value and the importance of innovation here in Australia, all of which, set the tone for the Australian flexible pavements industry’s peak industry event.
Built around the theme of Innovation Driving Value, this year’s biennial conference saw international delegates, global experts and local leaders converge on the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre for three days of industry engagement.
Looking back on the event, AAPA Chief Executive Officer, Michael Caltabiano, says it was a great success not only for the association, but for the industry as a whole. “What we wanted to create at the conference was the pinnacle of two years’ work,” he says. “We wanted to include leading industry technology, international experts and next generation thinking, and bring them all together in one event the whole industry can be a part of.”
The conference included a number of product and technology launches, some of which have the potential to change the way roads are built and maintained in Australia.
“We certainly had the opportunity to expose members to things like crack and seat for old concrete roads with an asphalt overlays,” explains Mr. Caltabiano. “It’s a new technology that was really launched at the conference through the design methodology and guide that AAPA and the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads worked on.
“We didn’t just focus on that, but also the leading technology and machinery for the Australian roads industry,” he adds. Caterpillar, for instance, used the conference as a platform to launch its latest F-Series Paver to the Australian market.
Mr. Caltabiano says a big part of the conference’s success was thanks to the calibre of the international experts and speakers and their engagement with the local pavements industry.
“We had some leading international industry speakers attend the conference and having them there to talk to the industry really gave the road agencies the confidence to go ahead with ideas in pavement design, such as perpetual pavements,” he says.
Mr. Caltabiano says that facilitating conversations between Australia and the leading industry innovators from the likes of Europe and North America really helped to emphasise the conference’s theme of Innovation Driving Value.
The next AAPA International Flexible Pavements Conference will take place in Melbourne in 2017 with new speakers and new topics addressing the yet-to-be-announced theme.