Special to DVN by GTB President Geoff Draper
GTB’s 117 th session, hosted by its expanding Spanish Delegation, saw record attendance and participation levels, demonstrating the growing urgence and importance of GTB’s work and far exceeding the levels experienced prior to the 2008 global financial crisis.
With more than 65 experts from our 19 delegations, including 12 experts from our Asian member countries, the interest in the work of GTB is clearly endorsed. It also gives me much satisfaction to note the continuing introduction of highly qualified younger members, and particularly the ladies who account for an increasing share of the participation, to assure our ongoing renewal.
GTB experts at the 117th session of the Committee of Experts – Granada, Spain, 12-16 May 2014 |
The programme for the week consisted of:
• An ad-hoc meeting of the Technical Steering Committee called to discuss the subject of simplification of the UN Lighting and Light-Signalling regulations on Monday morning 12 May
• The Committee of Experts session from Monday afternoon 12 May to Wednesday mid-day 14 May
• Half-day meetings of the working groups specialising on Front Lighting, Signal Lighting, Light sources and Installation.
The ongoing main themes of the week were:
• How to anticipate regulatory challenges presented by new technologies.
As part of the GTB intermediate working group sessions held in Torino, Italy last February, a half day was devoted to a forum to exchange views on the likely impacts of new technologies such as Laser, LED, Matrix beam, etc. It was confirmed that this was a successful event that will be repeated on an annual basis as part of the development and maintenance of the “GTB Vision”. Currently the topic is complementing the discussions relating to the new simplified approach to the regulations and, in particular, how the role of GTB will evolve.