Innovation

INNOVATION AS A CORNERSTONE OF THE BUSINESS

For us, innovation means doing things differently, considering the different aspects and specifics of each challenge, actively involving all the members of each team, from the supply chain to stakeholders, to promote collaboration among the actors involved. Innovation has become a key pillar of business development. The path started in 2019 has resulted in the integration of an innovation culture in the way we do things and interact with others. We realise that innovation has a very specific purpose in our business: we innovate to improve people’s lives. Throughout this cultural change process, training has been essential, enabling us to provide the necessary tools to our teams so they can develop new skills and ways of working. Over the course of these years, we have learned two important lessons:

Good listening

Different points of view and solutions, resulting from actively listening to the same problem, increase innovation and creativity, which allows us to maximise our impact.

Working together

Teamwork brings about situations where the sum of skills and abilities enable us to solve new challenges more successfully.

COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE

The Innovation department is working to ensure that this philosophy and way of working reach all corners of the organisation so the ideas can materialise and have an impact. That is why we are promoting activities with the aim of ensuring that our employees are better and more informed about the initiatives we are taking on involving innovation, new trends and technologies, as well as new models for dealing with tasks, thus cementing one of the pillars of our culture. In 2022, the following actions were carried out to promote innovation in ROADIS culture:

14 workshops

We held 14 onsite innovation workshops in the various areas where we operate, focusing on topics such as conception, the formulation of appropriate questions to correctly conceptualise a problem or search for alternative solutions.

Agile Working Groups

The new edition of the Agile Working Groups enabled 20 employees to research topics such as blockchain, cryptocurrencies, virtual reality, the metaverse and infrastructure of vertical take-off and landing vehicles (commonly called aerotaxis) in order to determine their impact on our business and see how we can implement innovative solutions to improve and grow our services.

Inspiration Day

"Inspiration Day" changed dates and will be held in the first quarter with the aim of inspiring the entire team and other relevant actors on topics such as innovation, sustainability and personal improvement.

Pills by Genius

We continued to deploy the “Pills by Genius” initiative to inform about the status of ongoing projects with the rest of the Group. Using an ingenious 1-minute videos format, project managers answer different questions about their projects.

PROJECTS

In 2022, we undertook projects that focused on areas related to our strategic sustainability vectors, such as the generation of clean energy and occupational Health and Safety.

Innovation Board

The Innovation Board approved four initiatives related to sustainability and focused on water saving, support for the education and development of young people in communities, and mental healthcare in the workplace. One of them has already been implemented in this fiscal year and the rest are in different states of development.

Renewable energy

We installed the first renewable energy generation plants in Mexico and India, with which we expect to drive energy self-consumption up to 50% of the needs at each site. We are also working on a wind energy initiative, exploring how to harness the turbulence generated by the passage of road traffic to transform it into electricity.

ROADIS Welnis

With the implementation of ROADIS Welnis, we have gained a strong position regarding the impact and importance of personal mental and physical health in the workplace. So far, the initiative has included various workshops on mindfulness, nutrition and access to equipment to help improve physical and mental health.

Waze

We have also implemented an automated system to generate alerts on the Waze platform designed to generate alerts when our operation vehicles stop to perform maintenance works on the A4 motorway, for the dual purpose of improving the safety of our colleagues and our road users.

Other collaborations

We remain committed to collaborating with other organisations to conduct research and innovation projects through initiatives such as:

"Critical Chains", using blockchain technology to validate and manage toll transaction databases. The project, in collaboration with Indra, seeks to find a fast and efficient way to increase the integrity, transparency and traceability of the data of these transactions.

"Keep an Eye on the Road", together with UPM (Polytechnic University of Madrid), endeavours to use artificial intelligence and vision to study human behaviour while driving in risky situations.

27 additional initiatives

At the end of 2022, we had around 27 additional initiatives in the innovation funnel, at varying stages of progress.

ROADIS GENIUS AWARDS

The "ROADIS Genius Awards" is an initiative for employees to offer solutions to the company’s everyday challenges. The winning initiatives are subsequently entered into the Group funnel for implementation.

In 2022, we held the third edition of the awards, proposing challenges to identify actions that can be used to:

Improve our relationship with Public Administration Offices

Improve road safety at sharp bends

Increase efficiency when passing through tollbooths

We received more than 43 ideas, with 6 short-listed finalists. These include some related to vehicle infrastructure, advanced safety barrier design, new businesses and brand image. The winner was the "ROADIS in the Metaverse" initiative, which proposed developing a space in the metaverse where people can be given training on road safety and safe driving.