THE CANOPEE RESEARCH PROJECT ON THE PROGRAMMING, DESIGN AND REALIZATION OF URBAN TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE COVERS

Abstract

CANOPEE research project, which originated from reflectionsrelated to the realization of structural covers over Paris RingRoad, has given to a multidisciplinary team (City of Paris, EIVP,IREX, Université Paris-Est, Tecomah, ARCADIS, EGIS, CETU)the opportunity to develop a global approach to structural coversof infrastructures in urban environments, in order to propose toowners, project managers and designers tools to analyze, planand conduct these projects, which face multiple challenges andinvolve many stake-holders. This project, which is financed byANR (French National Association for Research) under itsprogram “Sustainable buildings and cities”, started in 2012 andwill be completed in October 2015. It comprises 5 tasks :Task 1: State of the art. Research and compilation of existingprojects data. Analysis and synthesis. Task 2: Legal issues and projects contractual set up.Task 3: Projects governance and management. Games of actors.Task 4: Systemic functional analysis. Diagnosis and evaluation. Task 5 : Civil engineering solutions. Potential innovations.These works have particularly enhanced the difficultiesencountered to coordinate harmoniously and timely urbandevelopment and large transport infrastructure projects, eitherrailways or roadways, which differ by their actors, stakes andtimeframes. To create a structural cover means to create anartificial urban ground with a long term perspective, whichhighly requires quality, durability, maintainability andadaptability.The purpose of this paper is to present the main results of thisresearch, and to show how the different tasks were articulated.