Italy's largest motorway operator, offering 3,000 km of highway infrastructure as a validation environment for transport technology research.
Autostrade per l'Italia is Italy's largest motorway operator, responsible for managing approximately 3,000 km of highway network across the country. In EU research projects, they participate not as technology developers but as the end-user and real-world validation environment — they bring the actual infrastructure, operational constraints, and practitioner knowledge that technology partners need to prove their solutions work at scale. Their R&D involvement focuses on two critical operational priorities: protecting their network against extreme weather and natural hazards, and automating the inspection and maintenance of roads and structures. They are the rare industry partner that can offer full-scale motorway infrastructure as a living test bed.
FORESEE (2018-2022) focused directly on future-proofing road networks against landslides, extreme weather, and structural degradation using satellite data and decision support systems.
OMICRON (2021-2025) targets robotics and drone-based automation for road inspection, renewal, and upgrade — with ASPI contributing as the operational test environment.
FORESEE involved pavement and structural monitoring using satellite data and sensor-driven decision support systems applied to real highway assets.
OMICRON introduced digital twin technology, data analysis pipelines, and V2I communication as tools for optimising road maintenance decisions.
Their first project (FORESEE, 2018) addressed existential infrastructure risk: how do you keep a road network running when landslides, floods, and extreme weather threaten it? The focus was on passive resilience — monitoring, early warning, and adaptation strategies using satellite data and structural health sensors. By 2021 (OMICRON), the problem shifted from surviving disruptions to preventing them through automation: robots, drones, digital twins, and V2I systems that continuously inspect and maintain roads with less human intervention. The evolution tracks a broader industry shift from reactive risk management to proactive, data-driven asset maintenance.
ASPI is moving toward full digitalization of highway operations — future collaborations are likely to involve digital twins, autonomous inspection vehicles, real-time sensor networks, and AI-assisted maintenance scheduling applied to large motorway concessions.
ASPI has never coordinated a project — in both cases they joined as a participant, which is consistent with a large infrastructure operator that contributes operational access and validation rather than leading research agendas. With 38 distinct consortium partners across just 2 projects, they consistently engage in large multi-partner RIA consortia where they are one of several industry end-users alongside technology developers and research institutions. Working with them means gaining access to real motorway infrastructure for pilots and demonstrations, in exchange for adapting solutions to their operational requirements.
Across 2 projects, ASPI has worked with 38 unique partners in 10 countries — an unusually high partner density that reflects their participation in large, well-funded EU transport research consortia. Their network is European in scope with no apparent geographic concentration beyond their Italian base.
Very few organizations in Europe can offer a motorway concession of this scale — roughly 3,000 km of operating highway — as a validation and pilot environment for transport technology research. For any consortium developing road inspection tools, resilience systems, or smart infrastructure solutions, ASPI provides what no laboratory can replicate: the real thing, at national scale, with real operational constraints and procurement pathways. A technology proven on ASPI's network has a credible path to commercial deployment across major European road operators.
