EN 1317 is a European Norm etablished in 1998 that defines common testing and certification procedures for road restraintsystems. The use of the CE marking coming from its part 5 is mandatory for each EU nation as from January 2011.

It’s important to point out that EN1317 do not states which barriers should be used in one or another situation, but it states which test a product should undergo to be in a certain performance class and what are the safety levels (ASI, THIV, etc..) and the classes of performance (based on different parameters).

Road restraint systems are construction products according to Construction Products Regulation CPR 305/2011 and therefore must be CE certified. The EU regulation is designed to simplify and clarify the framework for manufacturers or marketer under her/his name for placing construction products on the market. The main objective of the CPR is the removal of technical barriers to trade in order to guarantee the free movement of construction products within the EU and common markets due to differing product and test standards, approval processes and conformity documents in the various member states. Key element to this, are the Harmonized Product Standard and the European Assessment Documents. EU Member States shall not introduce national laws which inhibit the free movement of construction products and shall not specify other methods than those mentioned in the harmonized standards to determine the performances for essential characteristics. Harmonized standards are established by the European standardization bodies CEN with the involvement of stakeholders.

EN 1317-1: Terminology and general criteria for test methods

EN 1317-2: Performance classes, impact test acceptance criteria and test methods for safety barriers including vehicle parapets

EN 1317-3: Performance classes, impact test acceptance criteria and test methods for crash cushions

ENV 1317-4: Performance classes, impact test acceptance criteria and test methods for terminals and transitions of safety barriers.

EN 1317-5: Product requirements and evaluation of conformity for vehicle restraint systems

The results of crash tests are mainly the Impact Severity Index (ASI) and Theoretical Head Impact Velocity (THIV) measured with the small car test (TB11) and the working width (Wm), which is maximum lateral distance between any part of the barrier on the undeformed traffic side and the maximum dynamic position of any part of the barrier. The heavy goods vehicle tests also measure vehicle intrusion (VIm).

Impact severity level A affords a greater level of safety for the occupant of an errant car than level B, and level B greater than level C.