The Ministry of Public Works, following completion of the Innovation phase, has launched its Transport and Infrastructure Innovation Plan 2017-2020, to which three new initiatives have been incorporated, making a final tally of 70, as reported at a meeting chaired by the Minister of Public Works, Iñigo de la Serna, this morning, attended by, among others, the president of Ineco, Isaac Martín; Renfe, Juan Alfaro; Aena, Jaime García-Legaz; and Ports, José Llorca, as well as the general managers of Enaire, Ángel Luis Arias, and Cedex, José Trigueros.

This Plan promotes Spain’s global leadership in transport and infrastructures through innovation, with the end user as the centre of the process and the involvement of all of society. The goal is to set out a road map that incorporates and coordinates all activities relating to the innovation of companies and institutions in the Public Works Group.

After presenting the Plan on 2 November, an open innovation process was opened with the aim of enhancing it through comments and suggestions for improvement that any citizen, company or institution wished to make. The consultation, open until 8 December, received contributions from a total of 59 agents, among which were companies (large and SMEs), individuals, institutions and public bodies, universities, technology centres and startups. During the period, more than 250 comments and suggestions for improvement were received through the website, meetings and observations from different parliamentary groups.

Incorporation of three new initiatives

As a result of all of the comments and suggestions for improvement that were received, three new initiatives will be incorporated into the Plan: Smart management of maritime traffic; deployment of the ERTMS across the national network; and BIM in linear infrastructures. In addition, thanks to the recommendations received, the ‘Intermodality without barriers’ and ‘Promotion of energy generation, storage and distribution systems’ initiatives have been amended to include several proposals related to improvements in energy efficiency in transport buildings.

From this process, the definitive version of the final document will be produced and made available to all citizens on 15 February 2018.