| Abstract | CITAC and SATI, two independent organizations specializing in the technical evaluation and certification of urban infrastructure products, have signed a letter of agreement of cooperation that will facilitate and accelerate the acceptance and use of new products and technologies by Canada's urban infrastructure sector. Prior to signing the agreement, the Canadian Infrastructure Technology Assessment Centre (CITAC), part of the National Research Council's Canadian Construction Materials Centre, offered a technical evaluation service for new urban infrastructure products to facilitate their acceptance on national and international markets. The Service d'avis technique en infrastructures (SATI), formed by the partnership of the Centre for Expertise and Research on Infrastructure in Urban Areas (CERIU) and the Bureau de normalisation du Québec (BNQ), also offered evaluation and certification services for new products and technologies in Quebec with a view to making them available to Canadian and international markets. The cooperation agreement with CITAC is a step towards this objective. The agreement, signed in November 2002, allows the two organizations to offer a joint technical evaluation service to their respective clients. This involves developing a joint evaluation protocol for determining the suitability of a technology for its intended use. The protocol will include both testing methodologies and performance criteria for the new product of technology. Both CITAC and SATI will review the test results and compare them with the performance criteria to see if the technology meets the requirements. If the technology is deemed satisfactory, they will issue a single final joint evaluation report, which will be available through each organization's publication service. |
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