This 23rd edition marks the centenary of the World Road Congresses. This exceptional anniversary provided the occasion for the worldwide road community to retrace and analyze its history over the past 100 years, namely the "great century" of the expansion for automobiles and the road.

To mark this occasion, the French General Road Directorate incorporated into the 23rd World Road Congress, a historical exhibition, whose subject also echoed the general theme of the Congress, sustainable development.

Under the title "Road Chronicles - the Oil Age ", this exhibition, assembled with the assistance of 14 countries, illustrated the transformation throughout the last century of 15 road case studies - 15 symbolic sites chosen on five continents, the majority demonstrating the complex and evolutionary problems (integration, competition or complementary modes, harmful effects and risks, saturation).

Each case presented the situation at four periods: the first in 1908, the last in 2007 and in the interval, two other periods corresponding to particular moments of the development of the road.

An amazing journey into time and space, reminding us how much the demand for road mobility has increased according to rhythms which differ greatly from one country to the next. This constituted a welcome retrospective highlighting that today; global constraints on transport are emerging although not without difficulty.

The attached pdf file "Road Chronicles" shows the nine boards used as an introduction and synthesis of this historical exhibition.

The catalogue of this exhibition, published under the same title "Road Chronicles - the Oil Age", was the gift from France to Congress participants. It also contained a DVD which reproduced the boards displayed and the exhibition for the 15 cases together with short videos "24 hours standstill" produced on each of the 15 sites.