Enhancing coordination between Member States' actions in the area of infrastructure research with a particular focus on biodiversity and ameliorating environmental impacts and full automated infrastructure upgrade and maintenance

In order to meet these large challenges this topic will be implemented through two types of actions

1. Coordination and Support Action

Transport infrastructure can result in significant and lasting degradation of ecosystems and habitats. Considering Europe has the highest transport infrastructure density in the world, there is an urgent need to address this rapidly increasing challenge.

Stronger cooperation should be developed between national, regional, European and international supporting programmes and initiatives on research, innovation and deployment, aimed at improving transport infrastructure performance on environmental and social sustainability. For instance, synergies with Horizon 2020 and CEF projects, as well as with the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020 should be established, while building as much as possible from relevant existing proven structures and platforms of infrastructure stakeholders. In order to ultimately ensure sufficient deployment impact, the proposals should include the national transport infrastructure authorities with responsibility for managing their national networks from at least 10 countries (Member States or Associated Countries), ensuring strong engagement in relevant European platforms and wider reach.

Proposals should cover all the following issues:

• Successful roll-out of a Strategic Research and Deployment Agenda (SRDA) endorsed by the national transport infrastructure authorities and the public innovation programme owners, representing the societal and environmental needs and requirements for infrastructure innovation. The agenda will take input from the relevant industry stakeholders, in close cooperation with the research community as well as environmental agencies which will supply innovative solutions. and developing alternative and more-biodiversity-friendly transport modes (e.g. bicycle paths and highways).
• Particular focus should be on innovative solutions in the planning and design stage of the infrastructure life cycle as this stage offers the best opportunities for achieving environmentally sustainable transport infrastructure network for Europe’s citizens reducing the harmful impact on the environmental and social sustainability.

The proposal should include opportunities for adapting transport infrastructure in view of changing demand, social changes, climate, biodiversity, technology and digitalisation. The work will feed into the strategic research and innovation (R&I) agenda of the relevant stakeholders, which should be jointly developed and implemented by the transport authorities, the research community, the infrastructure operators and civil society. Clear priorities should be agreed and widely communicated so they can reflect an aim for building sustainable and environmentally-friendly infrastructure.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU for sub topic 1 (CSA) of between EUR 2.5-3 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts. There shall be only one project selected for the sub topic 1.

​2. Research and Innovation Action

This topic should be considered as a follow-up of previous calls on remote sensing, monitoring and decision support to maintenance planning, and should be taken into consideration to develop the phase of intervention, to achieve the maximum automation possible in physical interventions to maintain the integrity, performance and safety levels of the infrastructure.

Proposals should cover all the following issues:

• Application of robotics and remote piloted systems to infrastructure upgrade or maintenance works to push the transport sector in the automated era and increase the overall productivity and efficiency of the transport infrastructure, thus relieving the burden of the costs on the users.
• Development of robotized equipment to perform routine, periodic or emergency maintenance works; adequate connections with the structural and functional monitoring sensors and traffic management system to deploy automatic intervention of robots and remote piloted systems while respecting safety operations and personnel.
• Development of robotized equipment for larger interventions of maintenance or upgrading to be remotely controlled in non-routine circumstances avoiding disruption of other routine operations and increasing coordination between them and other involved agents.
• Proposals should foster the development and use of industrial-prefabricated infrastructures and modularising the planning, designing, and construction phases for retrofit projects using robotised equipment to perform automated construction or maintenance tasks.
• Possibilities for utilising V2I communication for capturing data and processing by AI for predictive maintenance should also be considered. New technologies, such as for instance AR and VR modelling, AI and drone technologies should be taken into account.
• Projects must consider a pilot demonstration in operational environment (minimum at TRL7 level). Testing and deployment on CEF corridors and possible synergies with CEF innovation projects is to be considered.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU for sub topic 2 (RIA) of between EUR 4 and 5 million each would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

1. CSA subtopic: Substantial national and EU funds are spent on transport infrastructure development in all modes of transport. The efficiency of these expenditures is closely related to the level of use of modern innovative and sustainable solutions and on coordination among Member States. In order to facilitate continuous cooperation and coordination among public and private actors and to improve the uptake of new sustainable solutions, a structured dialogue between relevant stakeholders should be initiated and sustained with the key objective of successful deployment of research results.

2. RIA subtopic: An area where research and coordination is needed is the use of robotised equipment, drones or other (semi)-automated remote-piloted solutions, offering significant potential to reduce workers exposure to live traffic and construction machines, to increase the availability of the transport network, as well as to automate and reduce the cost of repeatable tasks and safety upgrades. Significant advances in robotising the upgrade or maintenance of network infrastructures based on standardising, modularising and industrial prefabricating of large percentage of the infrastructure will ease the way to automate most construction, repair and retrofitting projects.

​1. Coordination and Support Action

• Improved environmental performance of Europe’s transport infrastructure and networks (e.g. reduction of habitats' fragmentation).
• Targeted research and deployment actions and efficient use of resources within a coherent innovation strategy
• Strengthened lasting synergies between relevant national, regional (European) and international innovation programmes and initiatives.
• Widespread awareness of European efforts, as well as increased visibility of R&I outcomes and their contribution to improving environmental performance and biodiversity in a safe transport infrastructure network.
• Increased take-up of innovation outcomes by market, national authorities and relevant national platforms, while strengthening the alignment of innovation deployment of national infrastructure authorities in Europe.

​2. Research and Innovation Action

• Reduction of fatal accidents due to maintenance works of road users and deployed personnel by 50%
• Reduction of traffic disruption due to maintenance works by 20%
• Reduction of routine maintenance costs by 20%
• Improvement of network capacity by 20%, based on the levels measured at the beginning for the project.