Imanol García Álvarez and Alejandra García Montolío
Ineco provides technical support to different areas of the Directorate General for Roads through the Sustainability and Innovation General Deputy Directorate in the Public Procurement of Innovation Programme, which began in 2022 with the preliminary market consultation of the first 10 challenges focused on the life cycle of roads.
Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) is a public policy instrument for demand-driven innovation that promotes sustainable, technological and social innovation to improve public services. It is based on the purchasing power of public administrations to promote the development of innovative solutions that solve challenges for which there is no solution in the market or that require substantial improvements over existing ones. It comprises three fundamental phases: the planning and opening to the innovation ecosystem with the definition of the challenge and the Preliminary Market Consultation, the management and monitoring of the R&D tender and the deployment and internationalisation of the innovative solution in the market.
Pioneers in innovative public procurement
The Directorate General for Roads was a pioneer in the field of infrastructure when it initiated a PPI process in 2015 to solve the fog problems on the A-8 Cantabrian motorway, in which Ineco provided technical advice. The tender was completed in 2021 and allowed for a comparison of various systems to dissipate fog versus other driving aids, with the selected solution using side marking with laser light currently being deployed.
Ineco also provided technical advice to Adif in its CPI project for the automatic variable gauge system for rail freight traffic (MERCAVE), which began in 2020. The PPI process, currently being deployed, allowed for the improvement of existing technology to eliminate load break points and, consequently, reduce freight journey times and the associated economic cost.
