DIR Centre-West

Presentation

The Interdepartmental Road Directorate (DIR) Centre-West is a department of the French government ( Ministry of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion) responsible for the maintenance, operation and development of the A20 motorway and the national roads of the Centre-West region (i.e. those crossing the regions of Nouvelle Aquitaine, Centre-Val-de-Loire and part of Pays de la Loire, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Occitanie).

Under the authority of the Prefect of Gironde, its scope of intervention covers 1,150km of roads and crosses 12 departments. In addition to the A20, its network includes the following roads: RN 21, RN 141, RN 142, RN 145, RN 147, RN 151, RN 149, RN 249, RN 221, RN 520, RN 1021 et RN 1113.

https://www.dir.centre-ouest.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/ Nouvelle fenêtre

Projects / Use Cases

Participation in SCALE:

The roll-out of on-board units in emergency response vans and winter service vehicles is scheduled for 2026 and 2027

– from the first half of 2026 to the first half of 2027, the 22 Maintenance and Intervention Centres will be equipped with tablets in the emergency response vans used by CEE staff or safety agents (DIRCO is currently ordering the relevant SIM cards for the first half of 2026),

– A schedule for the ICPUs remains to be defined for the target fleet: objectives include equipping 125 emergency response vans and 72 winter service vehicles over four years.

BIESR will oversee the project, while local fleet managers will monitor deployments in Maintenance and Intervention Centres.

In order to enable the Pfro–Coopits link, the following connections must be enabled:

– The PFRO school has been connected to the Tipi school, load testing scheduled for the first quarter of 2026.

– The PFRO school is connected to the road-side unit and OBUo systems, tests carried out in 2024.

– The PFRO school is connected to the national pre-production node, tests carried out for the Coopits connection

Participation in INDID:

The DIR Centre Ouest participated in the InDiD (Digital Infrastructure of Tomorrow) project by equipping its network with dedicated terminals (known as ‘ITSS-R’, or road-side units).

As part of the first phase of deployment in 2022–2023, 17 road-side units were installed as shown below:

  • 11 on the A20 motorway, distributed as follows:
  • 5 in Corrèze on the joint A20/A89 section and the Noailles tunnel south of Brive-la-Gaillarde
  • 2 on the Limoges urban ring road
  • 2 near Châteauroux
  • 2 near the Vierzon toll plaza
  • 6 on the rest of the road network, namely:
  • 2 on the RN 147 – north-east Poitiers bypass,
  • 4 on the RN 145, and  1 unit at the intersection with the A20, 2 near Guéret and 1 unit near Montluçon, in particular for detecting and warning wrong-way traffic.

The installation of specialised terminals (known as OBUo, or on-board units in the operator’s vehicles) in five of our vehicles was also completed during 2024, enabling full-chain testing to be carried out in preparation for the roll-out of SCALE.

Find out more about the projects:

Generic contacts - services

Vincent Gibeau: Head of Road Safety Office (SE/BIESR): 05 55 30 06 52

Guillaume LIBERT: Head of the Engineering, Operations and Road Safety Department (SE/BIESR): 05 87 30 90 81