Spain: Leader in Infrastructure Development

Another technological challenge facing those developing the latest toll road technology and software is how to co-ordinate between different and potentially incompatible systems of electronic tolling.

Tecsidel, a Spanish information systems company, dedicates a significant segment of its operations to traffic and tolling. Their main product is the software that integrates a wide range of traffic information, including real-time signals from road sensors that must be processed quickly. This information goes to a central software system that manages large databases.

Tecsidel recently won a bid to design and deliver a system in Norway that can recognize and integrate different tagging standards: Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and the general European standard. There are different communication protocols for tags of different standards, and any interoperable system must also be able
to communicate with and charge the different clearing centers.

The company’s current R&D involves using laser systems to classify automatically vehicles within a variety of parameters, such as the length, height, and width of the vehicle, and the number of axels.

Indra, a major international Spanish company heavily involved with defense information research, also devotes significant resources to traffic and transportation. The company uses their intelligent systems in conjunction with a wide variety of technology to provide all systems of tolls.

Many of these companies, including another Spanish firm, Etra, use similar information technology to provide world-class intelligent transportation systems, a computer-based system that optimizes the movement of urban traffic.

Technological innovations can be employed in more than tolling technology. “We were recently awarded a highway in the north of Italy,” says Rubio of Cintra. “So we thought, how can we make it more attractive to users? We had an idea; this is an area with many foggy mornings. And there’s a new system being developed whereby, every 50 meters, a special electric sign with lights and radar will tell you on foggy mornings what is the optimal speed to drive or if you have to stop, if there are cars stopped up ahead. So we built this into our proposal: it increased the investment, but it allowed us to imagine that we’ll be able to attract additional cars.”

Using their knowledge and experience to integrate all the available technologies from around the world allows companies to win bids. But, Rubio says, companies always have to be watching the market for new advances. “Nobody had proposed using that system,” he says. “But once it’s built, everybody bidding will put the same feature into future bids. So we have to look for new ideas. We always want to be one step ahead of the others.”

The Future

Though governments control most airports on the European continent, airport privatization has slowly been gaining interest in Europe and around the world, and Spanish companies have used their experience in toll road privatization to take advantage of this trend as well. In addition, Spanish companies have holdings of ports, parking lots, even hospitals, all as part of the overall concessions portfolio.

When it comes to the growth of private toll roads, Samuel sees a number of places in the U.S. opening up to these types of projects. Says Samuel, “This is being studied in Houston for a road that could bring about $7 billion or $8 billion for the state. And I think New Jersey is also going to be a big one, because the finances are in a horrendous state, and they have such small amounts of money to service the debt of the transportation trust fund.” Texas is home to a great deal of toll road excitement: many toll roads are in the planning or construction phase, and a number may well be developed as PPPs.

Samuel says that, around the country, “state toll authorities are heavily in debt and would need to raise their toll rates quite steeply in order to support new projects. They’re loathe to do it as public authorities, and the thought is that it’s easier to explain toll rate increases if the toll concessions are explicitly businesses.”

Companies in this sector are closely watching the U.S. market. Though Cintra has already firmly established itself as a leader in the U.S., other Spanish toll road concessionaires operating overseas also hope to find a niche in North America.
In Europe, an increasing number of countries are turning to this model. Wealthier European countries are open to private financing to reduce public debt, while poorer Eastern European countries rely on the private market to invest in needed infrastructure development.

At the same time, companies flush with capital search for relatively stable, long-term investments. Toll road concessions have already proven to be one option in a diverse portfolio. And increasing advances in toll technology allow for greater accuracy and ease of use in the next generation of toll roads, those employing open road tolling.

Spanish companies, with their strong standing at the head of this international market and their extensive knowledge of the entire field, hope to continue to take the leading role in constructing and operating infrastructure concessions around the world.