15Budimex SA and Ferrovial Agroman SA together in SAFEWAY — an international research and development project, co-financed from EU funds under the Horizon 2020 program. This is a huge undertaking that has brought together 14 consortium members from Europe.

The SAFEWAY project is closely related to the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), planned in order to support services and maintain infrastructure investments in key transport corridors in Europe.

In the implementation of TEN-T-related projects, great emphasis is put on risk assessment, safety improvement and minimisation of the risks associated with meteorological phenomena, and transportation disasters. The goal of SAFEWAY is to design, evaluate and implement comprehensive methods, strategies and tools for planning technical interventions, so as to significantly increase the safety of land transport infrastructure.

The solutions developed will be tested for both their effectiveness and versatility. Research will include the ability to anticipate and quickly respond to natural hazards such as floods, droughts, fires, earthquakes and landslides, as well as man-made disasters: accidents, terrorism and fires.

The SAFEWAY project will involve four real case studies in four countries, linked to the following 5 TEN-T Core Network Corridors:

• The Atlantic Corridor, characterised by intensive development of rail and road infrastructure on the Iberian Peninsula. Research on climate, weather and fire phenomena will be carried out here,
• Mediterranean Corridor that runs through Spain. The south-eastern part of Spain is characterised by moderate seismic risk, high rainfall and extreme temperatures,
• North and Baltic and Mediterranean Sea corridors, where the analysis will cover in particular the rail infrastructure between Manchester and London – the busiest railway line in Great Britain,
• the Port of Rotterdam and the motorway section dedicated to autonomous vehicles.

The project will test various sources of data processed in real time, ICT solutions, control tools based on remote sensing and predictive modelling, as well as the possibility of their integration and use in traffic management systems.

SAFEWAY is expected to improve mobility fivefold and lower infrastructure maintenance costs by at least 20%. The project is also to considerably contribute to the improvement of safety of transport infrastructure, to the development of comprehensive tools, including an application for predicting and mitigating the effects of extreme events in all types of road disasters.

International consortium
The SAFEWAY consortium consists of 14 partners specialising in multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral areas related to the transport infrastructure in Europe.

The main consortium members of the project are: Ferrovial Agroman SA (Spain), Universidad De Vigo (Spain), Stiftelsen Norges Geotekniske Institutt (Norway), The Chancellor, Masers and Scholars of the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), Ingenieria Insitu S.L. (Spain), Demo Consultants BV (Netherlands), Universidade Do Minho (Portugal), Planetek Italia SRL (Italy), Infrastructure Management Consultants GMBH (Switzerland), Infrastruturas de Portugal SA (Portugal), Network Rail Infrastructure Limited (United Kingdom), BeTR Ben Rutten Technology Research (Netherlands), Innovactory International B.V. (Netherlands), and Transportokonomisk Institutt (Norway).

SAFEWAY will last 42 months, ending in 2022. 10 task packages are planned for implementation. Budimex SA will participate in four of them, as a partner of Ferrovial Agroman SA.

The value of project funding from the EU is EUR 4,500,000 under the Horizon 2020 project.