Indra consolidates its leadership in tunnel management technology in the United Kingdom, after being awarded a contract with Highways England

Indra, one of the world's leading consulting and technology companies, has been awarded a contract with Highways England, the public body in charge of operations, maintenance and improvement of roads in England, to implement a management system for its tunnel estate.

This project is part of a contract that foresees the option of implementing the solution successively in all tunnels, until covering all 13 managed by Highways England, for €10 million.

Indra has been awarded the contract with Highways England, competing against up to 35 international companies on the Crown Commercial Service Traffic Management Technology 2 framework, many of them with a broad work experience with this client.

Indra's prior work with Transport for London (TfL), the body in charge of London's transport system, has been essential, for which it has recently and successfully developed a complex project for the centralised and efficient management, and with greater security, of the city's 12 road tunnels, in addition to the 90 kilometres of metropolitan roads that connect with these.

With this new contract for Highways England, Indra launches its relationship with England's road traffic authority, and positions itself as a technology benchmark for tunnel management in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, it reinforces its ranking in this country as one of the world's leading smart technology providers for transport.

Indra will equip the tunnel estate with its proprietary Horus smart management platform, currently considered the world's state-of-the-art tunnel control solution, which will be deployed in the cloud for controlling the infrastructure from any centre.

Horus enables the integrated management of the tunnel's different Intelligent Traffic Systems (ITS) and safety systems, allowing for automated incident management. It offers operators real-time information and a unique perspective of everything that occurs in the tunnel, enabling decision-making and operational efficiency, in routine and emergency situations alike. In addition, it contributes to reducing the risk of incidents and speeds up management, optimises resource management and offers drivers greater safety and service quality.

In-cloud platform capable of managing over 10 tunnels

Another advantage of the Indra solution is that it permits the integration of multiple tunnels for centralised management using a single interface. Specifically, Horus's scalability, which allows for expanding its scope to manage other tunnels, uses open standards to guarantee compatibility with future developments, and its capability for integrating with the country's traffic management system, have been key aspects in the award.

Currently, all of the Highways England tunnels are individually controlled using local systems installed in each tunnel, wherefore the Indra solution entails significant improvements of operational efficiency, by offering an integrated vision and centralised information for real-time decision-making.

State-of-the-art technology for customer service

This project with Highways England reinforces Indra's position as global intelligent technology provider for transport, with projects in more than 50 countries, and as one of the leading companies worldwide in the development and implementation of comprehensive traffic and road management and control solutions.

Tunnels equipped with Indra's control systems are the best rated in all EUROTAP studies since the publication of the EU Directive EU 54/2004 on minimum safety requirements for tunnels. The Indra Horus solution has been implemented in recent years in some of the world's most emblematic tunnels, like those mentioned in London, the Dublin Port tunnel, in Ireland; the Chenani tunnel in India, the largest in southeast Asia; the Marao tunnel in Portugal, the longest of the Iberian peninsula; or the Renacer tunnel of the Bogota-Villavicencio highway in Colombia. The company also has references of these types of singular infrastructures in other countries, like China, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, and Spain.

Indra's state-of-the-art technology and unique experience is added to its service adapted to the most demanding clients. Indra has been acknowledged in the United Kingdom for its customer, partner and provider relationship model, as the first Spanish company to obtain BS11000 certification, and this same year has been chosen by NATS, the company that provides air navigation services in the United Kingdom, as Supplier of the Year, after successfully deploying its next-generation iTEC system at the Prestwick air control centre, which manages the whole of Scotland's air space.

Furthermore, the joint collaboration between Indra and Transport for London in implementing the urban tunnel integrated management system in London was awarded at the 2016 ITS Spain Awards, and was a finalist for the "Best IT Project of the Year" award given by England's APM (Association for Project Management).

About Indra

Indra is one of the world's top consulting and technology companies, the leader in IT in Spain, and the advanced technology partner for core business operations of its customers everywhere. It offers a comprehensive range of proprietary solutions and cutting-edge services with a high added value in technology, which adds to a unique culture that is reliable, flexible and adaptable to its clients’ needs. Indra is a world leader in the development of end-to-end technology solutions in fields such as Defense and Security; Transport and Traffic, Energy and Industry, Telecommunications and Media, Financial Services, Electoral Processes, and Public Administrations and Healthcare. Through its Minsait unit, it addresses the challenges of digital transformation. In 2016 Indra posted revenues of €2,709m and had a workforce of 34,000 professionals, a local presence in 46 countries, and sales operations in more than 140 countries. Following its acquisition of Tecnocom, Indra's combined revenues amounted to more than €3,200m in 2016 with a team of nearly 40,000 professionals.