Autostrade

Autostrade per l�Italia S.p.A. and its subsidiaries (the "Autostrade Group" or the "Group") are principally engaged in the study, planning and construction of new infrastructure and in the maintenance and quality management of the present network, in their capacity as concessionaires, of Italian toll motorways.

Autostrade Group is the leading Italian motorway concessionaire in that it manages more than 3.600 km of motorway, accounting for 61% of the entire national (or 18% European) toll motorway network, with a Group traffic volumes of 50 billion km yearly travelled and more than 40,000 as average theoretical daily vehicles per km.

The Group also undertakes research in various areas such as civil engineering, road management, socio-economic studies, electronics, etc. The Group`s research and development activities address all aspects of the toll motorway especially noise and air pollution, maintenance and Telepass toll collection technology.

The maintenance philosophy that forms the basis of the Italian motorway network controlled by Autostrade Group has been to guarantee optimum levels of maintenance and functionality of the motorway as also to follow up research and studies on new technologies of road maintenance and construction.

The Department Maintenance and Standard (with the acronym M.ST.), is responsible for monitoring the "functionality" of the network and performing research and development work (under a quality system in compliance with the requirements of the UNI EN ISO 9001 ed. 2000) in the field of new materials and technologies for pavements, structures and management systems.

In the M.ST. Dept. we have conducted out the following work:

• laboratory and field tests and special studies and researches on materials;
• monitoring and surveillance activities on pavements, bridges, tunnels and geotechnical structures, assuring a correct evaluation of collected data and the reliability of all engineering structures;
• planning of pavement and other structures maintenance;
• technical standards on new road technologies and materials, particular interest is taken in tests on special materials;
• design and research of road pavement, safety barriers and noise reduction tools;
• advanced research and study on new criteria for the evaluation of the reliability of engineering structures.

Environmental protection (water, atmospheric, and noise pollution, dangerous goods, etc.) is one of the major fields of activity of M.ST. Dept., which performs studies and projects to reduce the noise produced by road traffic through all the subsequent phases of:

• measurement of noise produced by vehicles;
• measurement of noise generated in the surroundings,
• sound absorption measurements for road surfaces;
• acoustic modelling of noise propagation and reduction, by using empirical and ray tracing models;
• noise mapping (aerial survey data, data acquisition, data post processing);

• remedial design and quality control of works.

Recent MST Dept. major projects related to noise

• At a national level:
• Environment Impact Assessment of the new motorway construction and development (Collina dei Ciliegi of Mont Blanc Tunnel);
• Traffic mobility enhancement through traffic management systems (Naples ring motorway) and multi-lane telepass;
• GIS applications to environmental noise items, for internal purposes and relations with external institutions (municipalities, regions, Ministry of the Environment).
• Acoustic pollution abatement with differential tools (pavement and barriers on Autovie Venete Motorway);
• At a European level:
• SIlent Road pavements for Urban and extra-urban Use (SI.R.U.US. project BR PR CT98 0659);
• Harmonised Accurate and Reliable Methods for the EU Directive on the Assessment and Management Of Environmental NOISE) the European project (HARMONOISE project IST-2000-28419).
• Sustainable Road Surfaces for Traffic Noise Control-SILenda VIA (SIL.VIA European project GRD2-2000-31801).