It's the most important ingredient of a road, but is often the forgotten part of the transport industry - this week Asphalt takes centre stage on Highways Voices.

The President of the Institute of Asphalt Technology, Brian Downes, is Paul Hutton's guest on the podcast this week who tells Paul how the industry has introduced many interesting innovations.

"The technologies in terms of how we lay them the optimisation of the of the machinery, the health and safety aspects of it, the approach to sustainability things like warm asphalt, low temperature asphalts, which mean they use less fuel to heat them up, which brings the whole carbon footprint down."

Brian explains industry recruitment and details the vast amount of training, "We manage several courses with strategic partners - the foundation degree with the University of Derby, we have a Higher National Apprenticeship, we're in the process of kicking off this this month," he says. "We also run what are called Lunch and Learn webinars."

The podcast also talks about next week's ITS World Congress podcasts from Hamburg sponsored by GEWI and SWARCO, looks at some key stories on Highways News this week and why VolkerHighways wins this week's "Adrian's Accolade".

If you want to attend the IAT Autumn Seminar "Future Challenges and Opportunities in the Asphalt Industry" at Aston University, email Russell.hunter@instituteofasphalt.org.