At a ceremony attended by senior EC and Member State officials,  FEHRL’s President, Claude Van Rooten, joined with other surface transport research organisations in signing a major declaration.  The Lyon Declaration commits the signatories to work together to consolidate surface transport research.

The two-day event took place in Moscow on 27 – 28 November, 2008 as part of the SIMBA II project. It was jointly organized by FEHRL and the Russian Professional Association in Vehicle Prevention (PAIRP). The FEHRL institute experts (from DRI, EPFL, IBDiM, KTI, LCPC, VTI and ZAG) presented an overview of EU activities.

At the last General Assembly, FEHRL adopted its new strategy to extend participation to Institutes outside Europe. The Israel National Road Institute (INRC)  has been officially accepted as the first Associate.

During three days, the Exhibition which was held in Paris' fully restored Grand Palais drew 42.600 visitors, amongst whom many schoolchildren. Thanks to the information uploaded on the different projects, the website is a real catalog of European Science and has already been visited 200.000 times.

Eugene OBrien, FEHRL's Research Coordinator for Ireland, was interviewed as part of an initiative by the UCD Earth Institute, an internal group in the university promoting multi-disciplinary research into Sustainability issues. In the video, posted on you-tube, Eugene describes some of the concepts being discussed in the ERTRAC committee on the long-term future of long distance freight.