ORIS and UNIDO Partner to Develop an Innovative Inclusive Program to Build Rural Roads
Governments see road investments as one of the most important public assets, especially in developing countries. Due to geographic and climatic differences, it is often challenging to implement sustainable and cost-effective solutions, which are adapted to local environments and availability of materials.
In parallel, infrastructure assets such as roads and bridges are much needed in rural areas to enable livelihood development in local communities, particularly for women and youth. Moreover, increasing connectivity is for instance essential for agribusiness investment attraction, agro-industrial parks and upgrading agro value chain.
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and ORIS are partnering to develop a unique innovative program for rural roads. Using the capabilities of ORIS - the first digital materials platform for sustainable infrastructure - identified large infrastructure projects will be optimized to generate financial savings, through better designs and optimized maintenance needs. The financial savings from the optimization of those projects will then be transferred into a Rural Road Fund (‘the fund’), supported by UNIDO, to build rural road connectivity. This innovative scheme was presented on 6 October at the IRF Annual Conference 2022 hosted in Marrakech. The presentation is available here.
UNIDO will work with governments in selected countries to identify project portfolios to be optimized with rural connectivity needs along agro-industrial road corridors. The fund will also benefit from the support of public, private and financial partners, who are already active in sustainable infrastructure and capacity building in developing countries and regions. This project is an innovative public-private financial partnership based on the unique use of data and technologies to build quality roads for sustainable infrastructure.
Rural road networks are a game-changer for rural and vulnerable communities by allowing access to safer and faster trading routes. Through this partnership, the project will facilitate both investment and technology transfer for urban modernization and road infrastructure upgrading, especially to connect rural areas.
By enabling digital innovation in infrastructure road programs, UNIDO and ORIS ambition to support countries with their economic growth while addressing environmental challenges.
About ORIS
ORIS is a digital materials platform that enables professionals and public authorities to make data-driven decisions for more sustainable infrastructures. The platform computes the various parameters linked to the project in its real context, helping to drive investments according to priorities: carbon footprint mitigation, increased durability, local materials circularity, cost reduction, safety performance, or resilience to climate change. This Digital Pavement Design and Material Management Platform was incubated and developed in the research center of the leading building materials company HOLCIM in collaboration with the technology firm IBM. ORIS was incorporated in September 2021 as a neutral and independent company, serving with agility the construction ecosystem towards more sustainable infrastructure programs.
Highlights from the 4th International Conference for Sustainable Mobility & IRF Annual Conference 2022
The International Road Federation (IRF) and Autoroutes du Maroc (ADM), held on 6 October in Marrakech the 4th International Conference for Sustainable Mobility and the IRF Annual Conference under the theme “Decarbonise, Finance and Digitalise the Road Sector for a Sustainable Mobility & Growth”.
Over 300 selected professionals from 49 countries and more than 30 speakers from key organisations in the public and private sector – as well as start-ups – gathered upon invitation from IRF and ADM to discuss innovative approaches to accelerate the roll-out of safe, inclusive, and climate-friendly transport infrastructure projects for a sustainable recovery and growth.
“This edition of the conference has a strong focus on action, on best practices and innovation (…) But let’s not fool ourselves: transforming mobility requires more than just technology and infrastructure. It requires a system change and that will only happen if we work together” stated during the opening plenary IRF President Anouar Benazzouz as he welcomed on stage Morocco’s Minister of Equipment and Water, Nizar Baraka and other high-level speakers including Ahmed Reda Chami (President of CESE), António Nunes de Sousa (President of ASECAP), Radu Dinescu (President of IRU), Magali Anderson (Chief Sustainability & Innovation Officer of Holcim), and Christophe Saintillan (Deputy Director-General of Vinci Autoroutes).
The conference unfolded around an opening ceremony, three thematic sessions articulated around effective project delivery, new trends and innovation, and impacts assessment and a session specifically dedicated to start-ups (full programme available here).
Finalists from the 2022 edition of the IRF Start-up Label contest and selected Moroccan start-ups got the chance to pitch their solutions in front of a selected and high-profile audience. More information about this year’s finalists of the IRF Start-up Label can be found here.
The final part of the event was marked by a number of special announcements and awards. Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier (Senior Vice President Citizenship Engagement & General Delegate of the TotalEnergies Foundation) and Benacer Boulaajoul (Director General, National Road Safety Agency Morocco (NARSA) & Steering Committee Chair, African Regional Road Safety Observatory - ARSO) took the stage together with IRF President, Anouar Benazzouz, for a special announcement concerning the 2022 edition of the IRF World Road Statistics. Thanks to the support of the TotalEnergies Foundation and the Michelin Corporate Foundation, this 2022 edition of WRS data is now available for free through the IRF Data Warehouse platform. Read more here.
IRIS was announced as the winner of this year edition of the IRF Start-up Label. You can read more about their work here.
Finally, Magali Anderson, Chief Sustainability & Innovation Officer of Holcim, was bestowed with the IRF Personality of the Year 2022 Award. The Personality of the Year Award has been discerned annually since 1951 to honour individuals widely recognised as having made particularly distinguished and inspirational contributions to the fields of roads and transport. Read more about the announcement here.
ERTICO-ITS Europe, the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA-AITES), the African Roads Maintenance Funds Association (ARMFA), the European Union Road Federation and the International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association (IBTTA) were among the other “sister” organisations present and that contributed to the success of the event.
Pictures and speakers’ presentations are available on the event page.
iRAP and Autoroutes du Maroc (ADM) Sign Contract to Start Assessing Moroccan Highways
iRAP and La Société Nationale des Autoroutes du Maroc (ADM) have signed a contract for the assessment of 200kms of roads in Morocco, and the training and accreditation of ADM personnel.
The contract was signed by Julio Urzua, Global Projects Director of iRAP and Anouar Benazzouz, Director General of the Société during the closing session of the 4th International Conference on Sustainable Mobility and International Road Federation (IRF) Annual Conference in Marrakech last week.
ADM is Morocco’s national authority for the management of over 1,800 km of Moroccan highways which transport 432,000 vehicles daily.
“We are delighted to be commencing this first iRAP project in Morocco with ADM,” Julio Urzua said. “It is an exciting first step for MoroRAP as part of the shaping Memorandum of Understanding with the National Road Safety Agency (NARSA) and General Department of Roads (GDR) to work together, and with local partners, to eliminate high-risk roads in the country.”
Julio also presented during the one-day conference on the iRAP Methodology as an evidence-based KPI for road concessions and shared celebrated success in Brazil. He presented in a special session on “Enabling Meaningful Change Through Measurable Impact” along with other sustainable mobility experts from Hanshin Expressway Co. Ltd., International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association (IBTTA), Valerann and ICT Online.
See the conference programme HERE and download a copy of Julio’s presentation HERE.
IRIS, Winner of the 2022 Edition of the IRF Start-up Label
After a thorough selection process that closed on 31st August 2021, the IRF announced during the its Annual Conference 2022 held in Marrakech on 6 October, the winner of the 2022 Edition of the IRF Start-up Label: IRIS
The IRF Start-up Label is an initiative launched by the International Road Federation (IRF) in 2021, with the objective of supporting the most prominent start-ups in the sector and give the transport sector that much-needed boost for innovation and change.
Awarded Start-ups will benefit from IRF’s most valuable assets for three consecutive years: unique knowledge and expertise, broad networking capabilities, and extensive data services.
We asked the IRIS team some questions about their product and team. Here is what they told us:
1. What problem is IRIS trying to solve, and how are you doing it?
Maintenance is critical to the safety and resilience of our infrastructure, yet most technology that gathers asset condition data is expensive or impractical at scale. Our award-winning solution enables infrastructure owners and operators to monitor concessions at a lower cost by using dash cameras with artificial intelligence (AI) to detect events, hazards, and defects in real time. Roadway data is automatically collected by patrol fleets equipped with our AI dashcams and is uploaded to our proprietary data pipelines where it is processed into actionable insights and visualised to our client's existing systems, requirements, and specifications.
Additional benefits to the technology includes frequent reporting on industry standard pavement assessment indexes, right-of-way inventories and assessments and real time mobility data such as vehicle, ped and bike counts, all in one pass.
Solving the data gap in concessions and roads management is our focus and we have worked extremely hard in ensuring that our solutions drive bottom line impact and contribute to ESG aspirations of our clients and partners.
2. What is motivating the IRIS team to grow and scale rapidly?
The transport sector is responsible for a quarter of the world’s greenhouse emissions, 75% of which come from road transport. Increasingly, extreme heat and storms are putting roads, bridges, water systems and other infrastructure under stress. The Covid-19 pandemic added another dimension to these existing challenges and highlighted the need for sustainable, and practical technologies that help build better, more resilient infrastructure and proactively maintain existing assets to enhance quality and resilience.
This ongoing transformation, recovery and resiliency are fuelled by the “oil” of the 21st century, Data. IRIS is committed to delivering to policymakers, concessionaires, and infrastructure owners the data they need to prioritise infrastructure maintenance and investments intelligently, objectively, and sustainably - and the time to act is now.
What excites us here at IRIS is that the roads industry recognises the need for urgency and has embraced our technology as a part of a greater strategy to de-carbonise their operations, optimise their fleets, and proactively maintain their assets. IRIS is well poised to rapidly capitalise on this ongoing market shift towards automation, digitalisation, and long-term sustainability.
Tell us more about the IRIS team.
The IRIS team is composed of civil engineers, geospatial and computer scientists who are all passionate in ensuring that the infrastructure we invest in today will fit the needs of present and future generations.
Where do you see IRIS in 10 years?
IRIS is committed to take the roads, tunnels, and concessions industry towards the 21st century and beyond. In 10 years we see IRIS as the premier provider of smart cities' data encompassing government, infrastructure, transportation, utilities, natural resources, renewable energy, and other verticals. Moreover, we are capitalising on the global movement towards zero-emission vehicles by 2030 and are partnering with auto manufacturers to integrate IRIS’ technology into in-cabin camera systems of connected, autonomous and electrified vehicles to automatically collect critical pavement, right-of-way and infrastructure asset data through our proven shared revenue model.
Embedding IRIS’ technology into the connected vehicles of the future will enable unprecedented data collection at a massive scale – enabling real time roadway data queries and infrastructure assessments, eliminating entire patrol and inspection fleets and reducing carbon footprints of governments and concessionaires globally.
Together with the Global Infrastructure Hub, the International Road Federation, and our global partners, our mission is to improve the lives of people around the world who just like us depend on reliable, sustainable, and resilient infrastructure to move forward.
Magali Anderson Honoured as IRF Personality of the Year 2022
At the occasion of the IRF Annual Conference and 4th International Conference on Sustainable Mobility hosted in Marrakech on 6 October 2022, the IRF Personality of the Year Award for 2022 has been bestowed on Magali Anderson, Chief Sustainability and Innovation Officer at Holcim.
The Personality of the Year Award has been discerned annually since 1951 to honour individuals widely recognised as having made particularly distinguished and inspirational contributions to the fields of roads and transport. Over the years, the award has distinguished some of the world's most influential transport personalities for their commitment to promoting the development of road networks that enable access and sustainable mobility for all, IRF’s own mission.
In presenting the award at the closing of the IRF Annual Conference 2022, Anouar Benazzouz, President of the International Road Federation, paid tribute to Mrs Anderson stressing “ (…) with her work, with her passion and her commitment to sustainable mobility, to innovation and to partnerships, she truly embodies IRF’s mission, vision and values”. The IRF recognition is the latest in a long line of international distinctions gained by Mrs Anderson within and outside the transport sector. It recognises her contribution to Holcim’s decarbonisation, the digitalisation of their transport operations, the road safety program, and the development of the women truck drivers programme.
Thanking IRF for this prestigious acknowledgment, Mrs Anderson commented “IRF’s collaborative approach to solving some of the most pressing challenges the road and transport sectors face is truly the only way forward to provide adequate answers to people’s needs, to the planet’s needs and to our economies’ needs”. “I am also particularly grateful to the IRF for furthering the cause of women in this industry where we – the women – remain extremely scarce while representing one of the greatest opportunities of the industry” she added.
A Mechanical Engineer from INSA Lyon, France, Magali Anderson, has spent her 30-year career over four different continents. She was appointed as a member of the Group Executive Committee and Chief Sustainability Officer of Holcim (then LafargeHolcim) in October 2019. In March 2021, the Group announced the expansion of Magali Anderson’s role to Chief Sustainability and Innovation Officer, putting sustainability at the core of its innovation pipeline. Magali joined LafargeHolcim as Group Head of Health & Safety in October 2016. Magali started her career as a field engineer on offshore oil rigs in Nigeria. She spent 27 years in the Oil and Gas industry, mainly with Schlumberger, holding operational line management positions like CEO Angola and Region Head Europe. During her career she also held several functional roles, including Vice President Marketing & Sales, Vice President Shared Services Organization for the Europe and Africa region and Global Head of Maintenance.
Mother to two daughters, her passion has long been the cause of women in the industry.
The International Road Federation (IRF) is a global, independent, not-for-profit organisation with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Active since 1948, IRF is a membership-based organisation, representing leading corporate and institutional players drawn from the road and mobility sectors worldwide. Its mission is to promote the development of roads and road networks that enable access and sustainable mobility for all. Its approach is centred on key strategic components of knowledge transfer & information sharing, connecting people, businesses and organisations, and working on policy & advocacy.
2022 Edition of the IRF World Road Statistics Marks the Beginning of a New Open-data Era
Marrakech, 6 October 2022 - The IRF Annual Conference hosted today in Marrakech saw the launch of the 2022 edition of the IRF World Road Statistics (WRS) which – thanks to the support of the TotalEnergies Foundation and the Michelin Corporate Foundation – become publicly available through the IRF WRS Data Warehouse platform.
Produced since 1964 by the International Road Federation (IRF), the World Road Statistics have become throughout the years an invaluable reference tool for stakeholders who want to analyse, understand and report on worldwide, regional and national trends and developments in the road sector and beyond. The uniqueness and quality of the IRF WRS data draws on the fact that it is collected annually through a survey administered by the IRF to a solid network of primary statistical sources (National Ministries of Transport, Public Works, Road & Transport Authorities, Statistical Offices, etc.). The collected data then undergoes a thorough process of statistical verification and validation.
While until now data has been sold as a commercial product, with the release of the 2022 edition, data will now be accessible for free through the IRF WRS Data Warehouse platform. “Selling the data was never a profit-making activity for our non-profit Federation, but rather a necessity to cover the significant annual cost of producing this piece of work which serves our sector and beyond” said Susanna Zammataro, IRF Director General at the launch ceremony hosted during the IRF Conference staged in Marrakech.
Speaking at the launch ceremony, Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, Senior Vice President Citizenship Engagement & General Delegate of the TotalEnergies Foundation commented “Youth is at the core of TotalEnergies Foundation and there cannot be a sustainable future if young people keep on dying massively on our roads. In this regard, we are committed to support IRF’s initiative, to help the development and implementation of evidence-based road safety policies and measures and to support the work of regional road safety observatories around the world”.
"The Michelin Corporate Foundation backs projects which are leading the way towards a more sustainable mobility. Through data driven solutions, we believe we can make a difference and positively impact the life of so many people around the world. We are proud to work with the IRF and to contribute through the new open data policy of the IRF World Road Statistics to the efforts striving to deliver a better mobility for all” commented Forrest Patterson the Michelin Corporate Foundation Director.
This 59th annual edition of the IRF World Road Statistics includes the latest data covering the years 2015 to 2020. It includes over 200 road and transport-sector related indicators across 11 sections, covering more than 200 countries and territories (worldroadstatistics.org).
Watch the Announcement Video
The International Road Federation (IRF) is a global, independent, not-for-profit organisation with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Active since 1948, IRF is a membership-based organisation, representing leading corporate and institutional players drawn from the road and mobility sectors worldwide. Its mission is to promote the development of roads and road networks that enable access and sustainable mobility for all. Its approach is centred on key strategic components of knowledge transfer & information sharing, connecting people, businesses and organisations, and working on policy & advocacy.
The TotalEnergies Foundation program brings together the public-interest initiatives carried out every day worldwide by TotalEnergies and its affiliates. Through the program, TotalEnergies aims to contribute to the vitality of its host communities and regions, with a special focus on young people. The Company works alongside partners in four priority areas: Inclusion & Education; Road Safety; Climate, Coastal Areas & Oceans; and Cultural Dialogue & Heritage. It mobilizes also its employees by giving them the opportunity to devote up to three days of their working time each year to public-interest initiatives. TotalEnergies Foundation hence contributes to the Company’s citizenship engagement.
Created at the beginning of 2014, the Michelin Corporate Foundation has as its purpose to back projects of general interest in all the countries where the Michelin Group is present.
The Foundation supports projects in five areas: Sustainable Mobility, Protecting the Environment, Sport and Health, Education and the Community, Heritage, and the Arts. The Michelin Corporate Foundation support socially committed projects in line with respect and concern for humanity. The fields in which the Foundation operates are broad enough to encourage the many people working in associations, foundations, and charitable organizations to ask for support. The Foundation gives them a new opportunity to show their civic commitment, generosity, and inventiveness.