On the brink: a technological revolution in road infrastructure management

Event, News - Published: 31 January 2025

Road infrastructure management is on the brink of a technological revolution, but faces regulatory, sustainability and collaborative challenges. To ensure the future of safer and smarter road management, it is essential that innovation can achieve an impact, high-level guests and EU–funded projects OMICRON and InfraROB agreed in the one-day conference ‘Old Roads, New Technologies: safe and intelligent road asset management’. The event in Madrid on 16 January 2025 brought together representatives from across Europe’s roads sector and highlighted the projects’ innovative solutions.

The event attracted around 160 representatives of governments, road authorities, road sector leaders, researchers and other key experts. Gathering in the Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos – Spain’s College of Civil Engineers —in Madrid, they discussed the next generation of solutions for maintaining and improving road networks. OMICRON and InfraROB presented their digital, robotic and other technologies for cheaper, safer and smarter road construction, inspection and maintenance and, along with the HERON project, provided further insights through discussions and demonstrations.

Event host Noemi Jiménez-Redondo, CEMOSA’s Director of Research & Innovation, kicked-off the one-day conference by inviting opening thoughts from high-level guests: Claudia Ciuca — Project Officer for OMICRON, InfraROB and HERON with CINEA (Europe’s Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency) — and Alejandro Lanuza of Spain’s General Directorate of Roads (DGC) in the Ministry of Transportation and Sustainable Mobility. Both speakers also contributed to the end-of-day panel discussion: overall they highlighted the opportunity and the need for international collaboration, the streamlining of standards and processes, and the scaling up of Artificial Intelligence and other digital technologies for better data and resource-sharing and to ensure safer, more sustainable and more efficient road asset management.

“The future of road maintenance and inspection will be automated, data-driven and sustainable, leveraging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and robotics for proactive, efficient and eco-friendly solutions.”
Claudia Ciuca, Project Officer, CINEA

“Sustainability is not a cost, but an investment in resilience and safety. We need to map existing physical infrastructure into the digital world as soon as possible.”
Alejandro Lanuza, General Directorate of Roads, Spain

Advancing smarter construction

The first technical session introduced innovative approaches to road construction. This featured an all-in-one multifunctional pre-cast concrete element from InfraROB partner Nuova Tesi System, which promises to streamline construction processes while ensuring durability and sustainability.

The modular hybrid bridge concept from OMICRON partners Teixeira Duarte and Armando Rito was also explained. This enables quicker, more flexible and cost-effective bridge construction. These technologies mark a significant step forward in reducing the time, cost, and environmental impact of building roads and bridges.

Improving inspection and monitoring

The second session spotlit the rapidly evolving field of digital inspection and monitoring technologies.

Showcasing advancements in UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) technology, OMICRON partners CATEC and the University of Seville demonstrated how drones can revolutionise the inspection of roads and other critical infrastructure, offering a more accurate, real-time approach to identifying potential issues. For a closer view of possible road damage, the vehicle-mounted ‘PointPix’ system from the University of Cambridge uses advanced imaging with cameras and LiDAR (laser imaging, detection, and ranging) to make detailed scans.

InfraROB partner RINA Consulting showed how fibre-optic sensors are being used to monitor infrastructure health, providing continuous, real-time data to inform maintenance decisions. These technologies not only improve inspection efficiency, precision and safety, but also enable better data-driven decision-making in the management of road networks.

Predicting future maintenance needs

As road infrastructure ages and traffic volumes increase, maintaining roads in a cost-effective and timely manner has become a growing challenge. The third session focused on technologies that use inspection and other data as the basis to improve the ability of road operators or other relevant stakeholders to predict maintenance needs and prioritise planning accordingly.

InfraROB partner University of Minho presented its pavement management systems and how they can optimise road maintenance by predicting when and where repairs will be needed. Also, RINA Consulting demonstrated the power of the project’s Digital Twin and Building Information Modelling (BIM) applications in improving maintenance planning and execution.

OMICRON’s Digital Twin (DT) and Decision Support Tool (DST) technologies, developed in collaboration between partners CEMOSA, Eiffage, Prointec | Indra and Régens, were a significant feature of this session. The DT— uniquely — can be accessed via a mobile phone without any specialist software. It offers a real-time, virtual representation of road networks and, with the DST, helps operators make better-informed decisions about maintenance, repair and upgrades.

OMICRON Digital Twin demonstration during the Final event in Madrid
OMICRON Digital Twin demonstration during the Final event in Madrid

Repairing roads with robots

A key way to make maintenance safer is to keep workers off the roads for tasks such as repairs or moving traffic cones. Both projects have developed robotic solutions that support this goal, and these were presented in the day’s fourth technical session.

From InfraROB, one standout was the autonomous interventions for paving from TU Darmstadt and MOBA Mobile Automation. This solution leverages robotics and automation to perform paving tasks with greater precision and efficiency. Likewise, project partner Tiny Mobile Robots showed how autonomous robots are being used for line painting, crack filling and pothole repairs, reducing the need for human intervention and so improving safety.

From OMICRON, partners Tekniker, Pavasal and  University of Patras showcased the multifunctional robotic platform. Uniquely, this is capable of performing several tasks, including crack sealing, line removal, signal cleaning, and the placement and removal of signals, cones and safety barriers. Remotely controlled via a VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality)-based interface, the platform enables safer, more accurate and efficient processes with real-time visual guidance for operators.

OMICRON Robotic Platform Placing Traffic Cone
OMICRON Robotic Platform Placing Traffic Cone 1
Crack In Highway

Safer interventions in focus

Safety remained a top focus throughout the event as, indeed, throughout the projects. Safety is especially important in interventions in live road environments.

In a session devoted to this area, InfraROB partner University of Vigo presented remotely piloted safety cones and aircraft systems. These systems help improve traffic safety during roadworks, allowing the safe re-routing of traffic while ensuring workers and road users are protected. Also, partners ASFINAG and Infrastructure Management Consultants discussed the role of Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications in improving road safety and traffic management. These technologies enable vehicles and infrastructure to communicate in real-time, reducing the risk of accidents and improving overall road safety.

V2X was also the topic from OMICRON partner Indra, whose real-time road control solution was presented in this session, while its related Virtual Crisis Room for coordinated and remote emergency / incident response was demonstrated during the breaks.

A vision for the future of road management

The final panel discussion reviewed the presented technologies and looked to the future of such solutions for safe and intelligent road management.

Moderated by Jesús Rodríguez, Chair of the OMICRON External Advisory Board, the panel included leaders from across the road infrastructure sector: Federico di Gennaro (Autostrade per l’Italia), Christian Honeger (ASFINAG), Rade Hajdin (IMC) and Yannis Handanos (Olympia ODOD operation), as well as Claudia Ciuca (CINEA) and Alejandro Lanuza (DGC).

They explored how emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning and advanced materials are transforming the way roads are managed and maintained as well as the wider challenges to be addressed to enable the wider uptake and effective usage of such solutions. They agreed on a number of points:

  • Collaboration is key – stakeholders must work together across European borders to integrate innovation into policy and practice;
  • Funding needs feedback – EU funding is available to support various developments, but clear articulation of the gaps and next steps by relevant stakeholders is necessary.
  • Climate resilience matters – technologies addressing climate impacts are increasingly critical in infrastructure planning.

Next steps ‘over the brink’

In the conference closing, Pedro Arias-Sánchez and José Solís Hernández, the coordinators of InfraROB and OMICRON, respectively, stressed the transformative potential of digital and robotic technologies for infrastructure management.

They emphasised the potential and demonstrated benefits for their projects’ solutions in improving road safety, reducing costs, and enhancing capacity. But they also highlighted the need for simpler regulations to allow greater European competitiveness.

Looking forward, they called for continued collaboration, research and greater training and market adoption of solutions to get the road sector over the brink and really achieve a technological revolution in road infrastructure resilience and sustainability.

Further information

The event materials and speaker details can be found on/via our event webpages:

The OMICRON project ended on 31 January 2025, while InfraROB runs until 28 February. Partners from both projects remain happy to receive queries, so please feel free to contact us and explore our websites for further information about our results and available technologies.

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Tweets by @H2020omicron

Road management on the brink of technological revolution!
Read our final event summary & access materials :
...🔗 OMICRON website: https://t.co/9gPqu31EN5

@infra_rob @HERON_H2020
#SmartRoads #Future #Roads #Conference
#Innovation #infrastructure #maintenance #digital #technology

We published 2 #CWA #Standards in #Roads #Maintenance #innovation!🥳
CWA 18175: XR tech & robotics CWA
18176: ...decision support for planning
Thanks to all contributors, helping establish common practices & guidelines for new technologies for #roads: 👀https://t.co/HzKwq58Lsp

🚀 Many thanks Jesús Rodríguez, OMICRON External Advisory Board Chair & recent Final Event panel moderator!
His... knowledge, experience & network have been invaluable!👏
👀 EAB videos: https://t.co/VAKPPqRmsW
👀 Final Event slides: https://t.co/StN3t0TWyr
#Innovation #Roads #Future

🚀 Speaker Highlight: Miguel Ángel Aragón, @eiffage

We were pleased to feature him at the OMICRON and @infra_rob ...final event in collaboration with the @HERON_H2020. He presented cutting-edge insights into traffic management systems and V2X technologies.

🚀 Speaker Highlight: Aníbal Ollero, @grvc_us

We were honoured to have him at the OMICRON & @InfraROB final ...event on #SmartRoads, in collaboration with the @HERON_H2020. He contributed to one of our panel discussions and presented his area of work within OMICRON.

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