IMBP award for AREA motorway company

IMBP award for AREA motorway company

Motorway concessions in France

- 12 October 2021 - 13:41

AREA, APRR’s subsidiary in the Rhône-Alpes region, together with EGIS, was awarded an IMBP Prize at the 10th IDRRIM Congress held in Rennes on October 4 and 5 this year. This award recognised AREA’s investment in ecological continuity and the preservation of biodiversity for developments along a river in Isère. More specifically, the IMPB prize ("Infrastructures for Mobility, Biodiversity and Landscape”) recognised the vast motorway development project of the A480, a route that crosses the greater Grenoble urban area.

The EIFFAGE group and its subsidiaries focus their talents and energies on making their infrastructures more environmentally friendly, thereby making their developments more integrated, acceptable and resilient.

This was the motivating force behind the work of the AREA & APRR teams as, in collaboration with the EGIS engineering office, they made unprecedented improvements to ecological continuity along an Isère watercourse, the River Drac, impacted by the new development works to the A480-Rondeau urban motorway, in Grenoble (photo).
Entitled “Traitement des continuités écologiques longitudinales dans le cadre de l’aménagement de l’A480” (“Treatment of longitudinal ecological continuity within the context of the A480 development”, the project recognised by the IDRRIM (Institute for Roads, Streets and Infrastructures for Mobility), consists in incorporating plants in the new structures created, the gabion walls, the retaining walls and noise protection on the River Drac side. The objective was to improve ecological continuity and promote biodiversity along the river. This approach also optimises integration of the project into its landscape. For all these reasons, it was awarded the “Promising Initiatives” prize decided by a jury made up of public and private sector representatives in the field of infrastructures and development. The projects were evaluated based on an analysis conducted by the CEREMA (Centre for Studies and Expertise on Risks, the Environment, Mobility and Urban Planning).
And water quality wasn’t forgotten! AREA constructed a total of 17 retention ponds to improve the treatment of the road water runoff, 12 of which were buried under the traffic lanes. The water quality of the Isère and its tributary, the Drac, has been improved for the common good.

Already a IMBP prize in 2020
APRR, AREA’s parent company, has already been recognised by the IDRRIM in 2020 with the Special Jury Prize focusing on the resilience of the natural environments along the A6, near Auxerre in the Yonne department.
As part of the project to widen a section of the A6 motorway from 2 to 3 lanes, the “Graine de frugalité” (“Touch of Thrift”) approach took its inspiration from the natural process of a wooded environment being created by the accumulation of branches and leaves, followed in a later stage by animal and plant colonisation.
Instead of planting in the traditional way, different types of local organic matter were brought in (straw, compost, manure, green waste, etc.). Applied in layers of various thicknesses, this then became the medium for spontaneous and natural colonisation by adjacent natural environments.

Each APRR & AREA construction or development project systematically includes innovations for unprecedented ecological solutions. These approaches are part of the EIFFAGE group’s DNA.