ROAD SAFETY

As manager of Italy's national road and motorway network, ensuring road and traffic safety and driveability is one of our primary functions.

This requires a constant and careful effort on our road network of approximately 30,000 kms, with over 1,900 tunnels, on a territory that has an outstanding variety of landscapes and landforms due to its complex geological history.

Managing road safety requires a constant and careful effort on more than 30,000 kilometres of national roads and motorways and this is carried out through:

•    Roadside checks, road patrol and measures that ensure driveability

•    Maintenance and safety measures

•    Attention to information and signage

•    Constant monitoring of our road network with innovative technological solutions (cameras and surveillance systems, traffic intensity detection systems, weather stations and variable message signs)

•    Emergency operations in cooperation with the National Civil Protection Department

 All of these are core activities for us and for our development strategy: Anas Multi-Year Investment Plan provides for the definition of a new organisational model with the internalisation of maintenance activities, the optimization of "operation personnels'" deployment and the reinforcement ​of surveillance activities.

To efficiently handle and manage road and traffic safety and driveability we have developed procedures and systems that interact directly not only with road users, but also with institutions and organizations at a national and local level. In order to reduce the number of road accidents Anas also actively cooperates with the Italian Traffic Police to promote information on road safety and awareness-raising campaigns.

WE PLEDGE TO MAKE OUR ROADS SAFE  

Our Monitoring Centres

Our commitment to safety is ensured by the constant monitoring of our network, the prompt intervention of our operations personnel when needed, as well as by the constant activities of our National Situation Room and 21 Regional Monitoring Centres. These control centres guarantee the coordination of all operational actions on our network, prompt measures and interventions by our specialised staff members who operate on our roads, and a continuous exchange of information, also towards road users, both in ordinary and in emergency conditions, in order to guarantee safe circulation on our road network.

Our control centres, for example, answer emergency roadside telephone calls, liaise with breakdown assistance organisations, allocate Traffic Officers to accidents, monitor the CCTV system, control the electronic variable-message signs on our network and supply information on traffic and road conditions.

Also our National Monitoring Centre plays an important role in managing road emergencies, even when caused by natural events, and cooperates with Italy's Civil Protection Department and the Ministry of the Interior's National Coordination Center for Traffic Mobility.

In order to efficiently monitor our network and ensure traffic safety we also have a fleet of over 1,100 vehicles equipped with cameras and GPS navigation systems that continuously monitor our road infrastructure.

A technological network for everyone’s safety

The planning and design of our road and motorway network always includes the adoption of increasingly high “safety standards”, in line with European directives. Our  principle objective is to continuously “increase user safety” and we therefore intervene on active safety (accident prevention) and passive safety (reduction of consequences).

While focusing on planned maintenance works, our company is constantly moving towards the concept of a “fully equipped” road, with the installation of new technological components that help ensure safety, comfort and the smooth flow of traffic. Systems such as “Vergilius” - which detects average and instantaneous speeds on specific routes - and the installation of new variable message signs, cameras and weather stations, are all meant to raise safety standards on the road and motorway network we manage.

The efforts we make to guarantee safety are particularly evident when it comes to managing the over 1,900 tunnels that are part of our network. At the moment a Tunnel Installation Adjustment Programme is underway: through the introduction of LED lighting installations, we have planned to replace the existing lighting systems with new generation LED lamps that guarantee significant energy savings, up to 40%.

We are constantly involved in improving road tunnel safety standards, in accordance with the principles of efficiency and effectiveness and all pertinent regulations, by emphasizing high-tech solutions, reducing accidents and minimizing environmental impact. There also is a plan to connect road tunnel technologies to a single supervision and control system, which will simultaneously guarantee energy and maintenance optimization, and we will increase safety in road tunnels by introducing the "best experiences" we deliver from our Smart Road project.

We also make a strong effort to spread awareness on “road safety” according to our Highway Code of laws. Many of our awareness campaigns aim at creating a new road safety "culture" in Italy, and these are especially targeted on young drivers.

To manage road and traffic safety we also esure the monitoring of our roads surfaces' conditions and conduct research projects in this field. A road's surface is crucial for active safety so we constantly monitor the quality of our road networks' pavements with equipment such as ERMES, a cutting-edge unit that measures surface slipperiness (under worst case conditions, e.g. when the road is wet) and road uniformity (measuring the intensity and frequency of vibrations induced on the vehicles that use the road);

- New road barriers

For passive safety devices, we have designed - and validated (through crash tests) - new, continuous, road safety barriers, with shielded poles that provide maximum safety, even for vulnerable road users such as motorcyclists. 

- Clearly visible road surface markings

Certain details are perceived better in adverse conditions. Particularly at night and under poor visibility conditions, e.g. rain or fog, visible road surface markings are a form of active safety that makes the difference and saves lives. Every year Anas monitors thousands of kilometres of its network, measuring the retroreflection — parameter that measures night visibility — of its edge lines and centre lines through a specialized mobile laboratory (DELPHI - DELineation PHotometric Instrument). By using a special instrument, this vehicle illuminates road surface markings and measures their visibility by simulating the geometry of how a driver sees them while driving.

Through VMS (Variable Message Signs) installed on our road and motorway network, customers receive real time information on traffic slowdowns, accidents, closed ramps, construction sites, queues and delays, travel time, weather events and anything else that could disrupt the flow of traffic.

When traffic is running normally, these signs provide other important information and utility messages.

WE KEEP YOU INFORMED DURING YOUR JOURNEY