Abertis becomes member of Together for Safer Roads international coalition

The world leader in toll road management strengths its commitment to road safety

July 6, 2016

Barcelona ? July 6, 2016 ? Abertis has joined Together for Safer Roads (TSR), an innovative coalition of leading companies in their respective sectors seeking to identify and scale best practices on road safety and reduce the number of deaths and injuries due to road traffic collisions. TSR leverages its global network to pool know-how, data, and technology from a varied range of sectors to deal with the growing global challenge of road safety.

Formally launched in 2014, TSR seeks to pool industry best practices to achieve a cross-sector experience, with the aim of promoting better roads, vehicles, and systems and improving road safety for their customers and employees. As a TSR member, Abertis will bring its knowledge and expertise to support TSR?s focus areas, which aligns with the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety?s Five Pillars: road safety management, safer roads and mobility, safer vehicles, safer road users, and post-crash response.

TSR draws its strength from bringing together companies on both sides of the Atlantic and sectors as varied as the technology (AT&T and Facebook), retail (AB InBev, PepsiCo, Walmart), and insurance (AIG) industries. In total, its members employ over three million people, have fleets of vehicles that drive around five billion kilometers each year, and operate in approximately 200 countries. Its Expert Panel is comprised of world-renowned, international road safety leaders and experts from academic institutions, governments, and non-governmental organizations.

The Safer Roads Challenge is one of TSR?s primary initiatives to turn its vision of a world where roads are safer for all people into reality. Local areas apply to the Safer Roads Challenge by identifying a top strategic road safety challenge that they propose to advance with TSR support. Winning localities then receive a team of subject matter experts from TSR member companies. The team deploys to the winning area to work closely with local leadership on a proposed road safety challenge. During the project, the TSR team may give, gather, and analyze available research and data; meet with stakeholders in government, business, nonprofits, and other organizations to gather diverse perspectives about root causes and potential solutions to the road safety challenge at hand; and assess examples of success implemented by other local areas that might be valuable to review.

At the end of the engagement, the TSR team delivers strategic recommendations and a proposed implementation and measurement plan through a presentation and a written report that draws upon the technical experience and strategic insight of the TSR team, local leadership, and community members engaged in the project.

Abertis’ contribution

As the world leader in toll road management, with operations in 12 countries in Europe and America and decades of experience, Abertis boasts significant international knowledge concentrated in two spheres:

Technical experience. In the last five years, Abertis has led the way in toll road management know-how and best practices, smoothing the flow of traffic and enhancing road safety. These best practices have resulted in exceptionally low incident rates in our mature markets such as Spain and France and significant improvements in growth markets such as Brazil, where deaths on the network were reduced by over 20% in 2015.

In 2015, the mortality rate (the number of deaths per 100 million kilometers driven) fell by 16 percent and the total number of deaths by 15 percent in the whole Group?s network. The incident rate (the number of crashes with victims per 100 million kilometers driven) declined by around 4 percent.

Commitment to the community (CSR). Through ongoing cooperation with all the group’s stakeholders (public administrations, customers, employees?) with a focus on road safety initiatives. These include educational initiatives for children and preventative actions for young people (with associations for people with spinal injuries sustained in traffic collisions, such as the Guttmann Institute, and other paraplegic centres in Madrid, Paris, São Paulo, and Santiago, Chile) and awareness raising initiatives for elderly drivers. The Group also carries out innovative social initiatives to foster the inclusion of people with disabilities.

Support is provided to the academic world through the Abertis International Network of Academic Chairs for Infrastructure Management and Road Safety Research, which work with the Polytechnic University of Catalonia-BarcelonaTech (Barcelona, Spain); IFSTTAR, École des Ponts?ParisTech, Fondation des Ponts, (Paris, France); the University of Puerto Rico (San Juan, Puerto Rico); the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (Santiago, Chile); and the University of São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil).

Abertis is the only TSR member of the road management sector and is one of the first European companies to join the coalition. This is the first time that Abertis joins a global cross-sector coalition. At the European level, Abertis has been involved in the “25,000 Lives to Save” European Road Safety Charter and was a member of the European Road Federation.

A Global Problem

Road safety is a global priority. According to the World Health Organisation, 1.25 million people die each year on the world’s roads and 50 million sustain injuries. It is the main cause of death for young people between 15-29 years of age. Without action, road traffic crashes are predicted to become the seventh leading cause of death by 2030.

This problem affects low- and middle-income countries in particular. Although these countries account for just half the world’s vehicles, they register 90 percent of fatal traffic collisions

About Abertis

Abertis is the international market leader in the management of toll roads, managing more than 8,300 kilometers of high capacity roads in 12 countries over the world.

Abertis is the first national toll road operator in countries such Spain and Chile, and has a highlighted presence in France, Brazil, and Puerto Rico. The company also has a stake in more than 700 kilometers through different concessionaires in United Kingdom, Argentina, and Colombia.

Abertis is listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange and is on the IBEX 35 and the international FTSEurofirst 300 and Standard & Poors? Europe 350 indexes.

About Together for Safer Roads

Together for Safer Roads (TSR) is an innovative coalition that brings together global private sector companies, across industries, to collaborate on improving road safety and reducing deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes globally.

TSR brings together members? knowledge, data, technology, and global networks to focus on five areas that will make the greatest impact globally and within local communities. These focus areas align with the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety?s Five Pillars by developing programs to address issues in road safety management, safer roads and mobility, safer vehicles, safer road users, and post-crash response. To learn more, visit www.togetherforsaferroads.org.