The Autobrennero Group has historically made innovation one of its tools of choice, in line with its strategic mission to guarantee the country the efficiency of its first European link, the Brenner Pass, through which more than 10% of all Italian import-export transits, with an actual number of transits of more than 70 million vehicles. In order to avail itself of the most innovative technologies, first and foremost to increase the level of safety of the infrastructure and reduce accidents, in conjunction with carrying out the functional activities for the management of the motorway artery under concession, the Group has always been involved in research and experimentation projects, availing itself, among others, of the collaboration of numerous Italian and foreign universities. These collaborations have covered the most diverse fields of study and application, from economics to transport, investigating not only safety-related elements, but also the architectural characterisation of the works and the impact of the motorway on the surrounding environment. Increasing motorway capacity without the consumption of additional land and integrating the various forms of transport managed in the best possible way are another priority field of action for Autostrada del Brennero, also because of the particular environmental conditions in which it operates.
Autostrada del Brennero intends to promote the realisation of a European Green Corridor Brenner-Modena that would allow environmentally friendly vehicles to travel the entire stretch between the Brenner Pass and Modena, so as to make the A22 a green, digital and innovative corridor for the mobility of the future.
In connection with sustainable mobility, the Brenner Motorway coordinated from 2016 to 2021 the European project BrennerLEC, co-financed by the European Commission under the LIFE programme. Its aim was to implement experimental traffic control measures to make traffic flows regular, increase motorway capacity and reduce emissions of atmospheric pollutants and climate-altering gases from motorway traffic.
The BrennerLEC project exploited real-time traffic, weather and air quality data from actors in different sectors to generate dynamic traffic management measures, thanks to the availability of the NOI Open Data Hub platform.
On the subject of digitalisation and safety, Autostrada del Brennero SpA has participated in the past and is still participating in investment projects for digital transformation relating to the increasingly pervasive use of ICT in mobility. The objective pursued is to equip the infrastructure with an I2V communication system capable of managing vehicle traffic in the future in a manner not dissimilar to rail traffic, overcoming the current aleatory way of using the infrastructure, in order to increase the capacity of the artery, reduce polluting emissions and progressively eliminate human error, which is today the main cause of accidents.