Smart imagining: Atlantia turns to traffic tech right after Italy motorway exit

The brand of Italian infrastructure group Atlantia is found outside the house its headquarters in Rome, Italy, October 5, 2020. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

MILAN, March 9 (Reuters) – Obtaining offered its motorway small business in Italy, Atlantia (ATL.MI) is investing in good site visitors technological know-how to enable push progress of cleaner transport and open up up new marketplaces these kinds of as the United States.

Controlled by the Benetton spouse and children, the infrastructure group is trying to get to at last put at the rear of it a dispute activated by the fatal collapse of a motorway bridge operated by its Autostrade per l’Italia small business in Genoa in 2018.

It offered that organization and has started applying some of the 8 billion euro ($8.7 billion) proceeds envisioned in the coming months from the transaction to grow into wise targeted visitors tech.

In January, it bought Siemens Yunex Site visitors division for 950 million euros – a move that created it the only important motorway operator in Europe with a sensible visitors enterprise.

Now, as to start with mover, it has the possibility to increase this enterprise and consolidate a fragmented market place.

The enterprise, which will update traders about its future approach on March 11, sees the targeted traffic know-how business enterprise as important in its have appropriate but also complementary to its existing operations.

“The worth of any freeway and airport small business without the need of technological innovation is destined to slide. In 5-6 decades this could turn out to be another main small business of Atlantia,” a resource common with the issue reported.

Atlantia’s major operations are motorways, airports and digital toll payment corporation Telepass. The group controls Spanish freeway operator Abertis, operates a sequence of airports in Italy and France, has a 15% stake in channel tunnel operator Getlink (GETP.PA) and owns 51% of Telepass.

The source reported the group was scouting bolt-on technology prospects like particular reason acquisition organizations (SPACs) owned by private equity or spun-off ancillary businesses designed internally by groups like BMW and Bosch.

Yunex will enable Atlantia to recognize swiftly the industry in which it competes with all-around 300 other smart tech groups, the source explained.

“Carmakers could be exciting companions presented the apparent synergies,” the supply stated.

PLUGGED IN

Atlantia’s travel arrives as governments close to the planet search to significant tech to reduce vehicle congestion and air pollution to make massive towns far more liveable and organizations a lot more productive.

Plugging in traffic information solutions and connecting up autos will allow for cars to map their personal routes to minimize travel periods and carbon emissions and give town administrators much more bang for the buck from current infrastructure.

Less than tension from the European Union to reduce emissions, numerous European metropolitan areas will want technology to optimise targeted traffic flows.

“The very best route will be selected by the car or truck and not Google Maps – no matter if that is with or with no a driver,” the source stated.

Yunex, which operates in much more than 500 cities throughout the world, has designed a raft of products and services which include a procedure where site visitors lights, cameras and sensors relay data to a control area that crunches the details to decrease congestion and mishaps.

In the western German town of Wiesbaden, a Yunex process released in November with federal government funding provides motorists route and pace recommendations on digital roadside displays controlled by a targeted traffic administration centre.

The Wiesbaden command place can control flows to relieve visitors jams on main roadways or give priority to community transportation buses, ambulances and fireplace engines.

EYES ON The united states

Atlantia mentioned in January it envisioned the Smart Transportation Techniques (ITS) current market to increase at an common level of 10% a yr to 2026 underpinned by a world-wide shift in the direction of far more sustainable transport.

It is banking on the move to open up new organization traces inside cities across the globe like Latin The usa, in which its Abertis subsidiary has a sturdy presence even though exterior metropolitan parts, and the United States.

ITS technology will be necessary to set up tolling techniques and to analyse and regulate targeted visitors volumes.

“The U.S. industry is specially interesting provided the demand for innovation know-how to map connections between airports and highways,” a second resource reported.

Yunex is already running in U.S. metropolitan areas like Boston and counties like Miami-Dade in Florida the place it supplies its website traffic administration procedure.

The second resource claimed the enterprise could offer double the returns of Atlantia’s conventional motorway concession organization.

In Europe, Atlantia designs to replicate Yunex operations in its main geographic marketplaces – Italy, France and Spain – by featuring solutions to keep an eye on city site visitors and deal with highway intersections and tunnels both equally on its network and on other clients’ infrastructures.

Getlink could become one particular of Yunex’s new consumers, a third source mentioned. Two of the sources added that Atlantia, which has not created any general public statement on its intentions, was weighing alternatives to boost its stake in the channel tunnel operator.

In January, Atlantia stated it predicted product sales at Yunex to achieve 1 billion euros in the next 5 several years from 635 million euros past yr.

The change to tech, which incorporates Atlantia’s latest expense in electrical air taxi maker Volocopter, could also lower the regulatory risk connected with the group’s portfolio of concession-based organizations.

“Following the bridge catastrophe, it is now apparent to anyone that the regulatory danger is tricky to assess and take care of,” a different resource common with the group’s strategy mentioned.

($1 = .9192 euros)

Reporting by Francesca Landini and Stephen Jewkes
Modifying by Keith Weir and Jane Merriman

Our Expectations: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.