1st Cefic Tremcards User Forum

Added: (Mon Aug 12 2002)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Introduction
Due to many changes in ADR over the last few years the requirements for ‘Instructions of Writing’ have changed many times. Consequently, Cefic Tremcards and the NCEC’s Tremcard software have also undergone a number of developments. In order to keep users abreast of changes and listen to their valuable feedback Cefic and the NCEC held the first ever Tremcards User Forum at Cefic’s offices in Brussels in June 2002.

This important meeting was attended by major users of the software, such as Akzo Nobel, Syngenta and Solvay, as well as representatives of Cefic member federations and a several of NCEC’s distribution agents (see www.tremcards.com for a full list of agents), and was the first of this year’s forums – the second taking place in the UK, at the NCEC on 4 September 2002.

The NCEC’s Tremcard Product Manager, Mr Sunil Choudrie, said after the meeting, “This first Tremcards forum really helped both Cefic and the NCEC find out what issues there are amongst the user community. It was a great success and the organisations attending found the day extremely beneficial.”

Cefic Tremcards User Helpdesk
Early in 2002, Cefic set up a User Help Desk to handle all enquiries with regards to the content of Cefic Tremcards. Cefic’s Filip Jonckheere reviewed the calls to the desk and told the Forum that the Help Desk had been a great success, helping organisations to find the right Tremcard for their product, thereby raising compliance with legislation and ensuring greater help to the driver and first responders when dealing with an incident. (For any queries related to the content of Cefic Tremcards, please email Cefic at tremcards@cefic.be.)
The NCEC’s Tremcard Product Manager, Sunil Choudrie, then reviewed some of the calls to the NCEC’s Software Help Desk. He told the forum that feedback through the Help Desk helps the NCEC to continuously improve the Tremcards software through its annual updates.

Changes to ADR
Filip Jonckheere went on to describe the various changes to ADR and how these affected the content of Cefic Tremcards. He reminded the delegates that:

· ADR 1999 remains valid till 31/12/2002;
· ADR 2001 remains valid till 30/6/2003;
· ADR 2003 can be used from 1/1/2003 onwards and becomes obligatory from 1/7/2003 onwards.

The complete list of all amendments for ADR 2003 is available from http://www.unece.org/trans/main/dgdb/wp15/wp15rep.html (see documents TRANS/WP.15/168 and TRANS/WP.15/168/Add.1).

New ADR Countries
Delegates were told that Morocco and Kazakhstan have now signed-up to ADR.

Which Language To Use
There has been much discussion about which languages to use for which countries. Delegates were given a very useful chart to help with language selection. This is reproduced overleaf.

New Developments
Finally, Sunil Choudrie told the meeting about the exciting new developments to the system. These include:
· Introduction of an internet/intranet browser version of the system;
· Addition of three new languages: Macedonian, Belorussian and Ukrainian;
· A new Route planning module.

For further information about this Meeting or any Tremcard related issue, please contact the National Chemical Emergency Centre:

National Chemical Emergency Centre,
F6 Culham, Abingdon, OX14 3ED, United Kingdom
tel: +44 (0) 1235 463060
fax: +44 (0) 1235 463070
email: ncec@aeat.co.uk
web: www.tremcards.com