The project, funded by the Science and Innovation Missions Programme (CDTI), is being carried out by a consortium led by SisTem and with the participation of Sacyr Conservation, Alsa, Vodafone, Anteral and Grupo Infonorte. With a budget of four million euros, it was launched in October 2024 and will last until December 2025.
A safer, more connected and smarter road
Iconica's objective is clear: to transform road infrastructure into active components of mobility.
To this end, the consortium is working on solutions that:
• Improve road safety through smart and predictive technologies.
• Facilitate real-time communication between vehicles and infrastructure over 5G networks.
• Integrate elements such as intelligent beacons, capable of transmitting alerts or even modifying the use of lanes depending on traffic.
• Increase the protection of vulnerable users, such as roadside workers, through their geolocation and communication to digital navigation platforms.
The role of Sacyr Conservation
Within the Iconica project, Sacyr Maintenance leads two key lines of research. On the one hand, it develops IoT geopositioning devices to signal temporary or mobile works, which will be integrated into the STEP (Safer Transport for Europe Platform) platform.
Secondly, it investigates flexible beacons, which allow additional lanes to be opened or closed remotely, based on traffic prediction algorithms that use data from the infrastructure and the connected vehicles themselves.
"We already have a prototype of beacons installed in a project in Huelva to study their resistance to the passage of heavy vehicles and the effects of heat, rain and dust," explains Álex Otero, innovation project manager at Sacyr Engineering and Infrastructures.
Iconica is integrated into Vodafone's STEP mobility platform, which centralizes data and informs drivers about incidents on the road, such as workers, objects on the side of the road or stationary machinery.
The data and incidents collected are communicated to STEP and also shared with DGT 3.0 (Spanish Traffic Authority), which makes it possible for applications such as Google Maps, Waze or Here to alert drivers of possible risks on their route.
Another of Sacyr Conservation's lines of work focuses on traffic modelling and prediction. The behavior of traffic on the A-3 is currently being analyzed with the aim of planning works, causing as few disruptions as possible to users and anticipating traffic jams.
"The most important thing for Sacyr Conservation is to improve safety and protect people who work on the road, geolocate them and alert drivers in real time," adds Álex Otero.
