Road infrastructure needs to adapt to the changes made by vehicle manufacturers, both for private and professional use.
According to Marta Gil, Sacyr's Chief Strategy, Innovation and Sustainability Officer, in the future, innovations in connected vehicles and roads will go hand in hand, and "that future consists of providing cars with more technology and on-the-road connectivity, with the incorporation of technology to make these infrastructures smarter and safer, not only for drivers and road users, but also to improve the occupational safety of employees."
Currently, the most booming mobility market trends are autonomous mobility, connected vehicles, and generative artificial intelligence.
A driverless car or bus requires systems that increase road safety, hence Sacyr's interest in learning what the needs of both public customers and the manufacturers of these vehicles are in order to adapt our works and maintenance work, as well as the roads we operate towards more connected mobility.
The second edition of InnoVision, held on November 27 at Sacyr, addressed the challenges and opportunities of connected mobility, paying special attention to regulation in the sector and to learn about real cases of how the most cutting-edge technologies on the market are being implemented.
Right now, we are working on the Sustainable Mobility Law, which aims to guarantee governance and coordination at all levels and thus guarantee mobility as a right. Mobility has to be accessible, inclusive and universal.
In addition, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility is working on a technological platform to learn driving speeds, their origin and destination on the national road network, the road surface, etc., also with the aim of digitizing processes and avoiding the problem of road safety.
As for Spain’s Directorate General of Traffic, work is being done on a new regulatory framework on vehicles through the modification of the general vehicle regulations.
This entity launched the DGT 3.0 project, in which Sacyr participates, which seeks to find greater safety in employees who work on the roads, with digitized connected cones to show where the works are, also with IoT vests to detect workers on the construction sites, with the aim of giving the citizen as much information as possible.
Likewise, the Madrid City Council is also working on tools that allow drivers to group data to learn driving patterns and thus be able to plan a more controlled mobility. Through big data, it has estimated that 14 million trips occur every day, taking all forms of mobility into account. According to data from the City Council, sustainable mobility has increased, especially in public transport. In addition, 4 million people walk every day. AI allows to see how people move.
Technologies that make a difference
On the same day, specific examples were presented of how progress is being made in the deployment of technological solutions that will allow connected roads to develop their full potential.
This is precisely the objective of the MOVINN innovation ecosystem promoted by Sacyr together with such relevant players in the sector as Renault Group, CTAG, CIDAUT, ITENE, Sernauto, ITS Spain and Pons Mobility, to strengthen collaboration between the entire value chain and promote the development and adoption of these innovations. Among them, some such as:
-Frontier Project (Factual): It has developed the Smart Roat Index, with a collection of 56 technical attributes classified into three blocks to define technical indicators that allow characterizing an infrastructure rating for autonomous cars: physical, digital and connectivity infrastructure. Its purpose is to preserve the safety of mobility with the aim of studying how autonomous cars are mixed with normal vehicles in infrastructures in a safe way.
-Tecnalia: Connects cameras with drones to capture information on possible risks for workers. It also works with the teleoperation of machinery or vehicles in tedious and repetitive operations within the sector.
-Valerann: He works to increase road safety through data with the help of artificial intelligence, so that it is understandable and actionable by the operator. How to add value to a road so that autonomous cars go in a safe way so that the car user goes without executing any driving-related actions.
-Renault, its main objective is safety. They have the Human First program, a system for the driver to identify how they have driven through a score they receive, with the safety code, to improve driving at the moment, or what the braking system is like, measured with the Safety Guard. In its transformation from a company that manufactures cars to a service and technology company, the Renault group is clearly committed to collaboration and open innovation, underlining the importance of coordinating the information currently collected by vehicles with that which companies such as Sacyr recover from the infrastructures they operate.
Plug & Play: The world's largest investor in startups has supported the development of the German technology company Klimator, which makes forecasts on current and future road weather for the entire road network. The company's forecasts allow drivers to connect to roadside weather sensors for real-time information and the winter service industry to make decisions about snow removal and snowmelt. The ability to integrate this technology into the car to increase road safety is being studied.
