Across MATIS’ network, hundreds of ITS and C-ITS upgrades have been deployed on motorways carrying thousands of vehicles a day without a single lane closure for the works themselves. Three partners illustrate how.
AUCAT: sequencing the works so the road never stops
The C-32 (Pau Casals) motorway runs 47 km along the Catalan coast near Barcelona: 16 tunnels, more than 26,000 vehicles per day, and one of the busiest sections of the Spanish TEN-T network. To modernise its ageing ITS and safety systems, AUCAT ruled out stopping traffic from the very start.A comprehensive suite of over 100 ITS elements featuring diverse technologies, including new variable message signs, optical height detectors to stop oversized lorries before tunnel portals, and upgraded fibre optics to replace slow mobile links—was rolled out through tight, precise sequencing. Every new lane-control system was fully integrated into HORUS, the tunnel management platform, and brought into service before the next intervention began. Technologies were chosen specifically for their seamless compatibility with active infrastructure, ensuring that upgrading never meant taking existing safety networks offline, even briefly.
ABVVP: layering a new system onto an operational network
On the Italian A4 motorway, specifically the section between Brescia and Padova, Autostrada Brescia Verona Vicenza Padova (ABVVP) faced a particular challenge. Years of ITS and C-ITS deployment —including roadside shelters, RSU antennas, and toll station buildings—had highlighted the need for a centralized system for remote power supply monitoring; consequently, faults were often detected only after the fact.
Rather than replacing the existing infrastructure, ABVVP integrated it, one layer at a time. The new SCADA system was connected gradually: first the roadside shelter interfaces, then those in the toll station buildings, followed by the technical cabinets, and finally the fire detection sensors within the Berici tunnels near Vicenza. Each level was made operational and configured before the next was added, ensuring no service interruption for equipment already in operation.
DIRIF: matching the fix to what each generation of equipment can take
The Sirius Traffic Management System, operated by DIRIF (French Ministry of Transport’s road directorate for Île-de-France), connects roughly 400 variable message signs, 500 cameras and 800 counting loops across some 1,000 km of national roads in Île-de-France. Securing it against cyber threats had to happen without ever taking it offline.
DIRIF split the work into three simultaneous layers. At the software level, encrypted exchanges with certificates replaced unprotected communications. At the network level, switches and routers were upgraded to cyber-secure devices with integrated firewalls. The most delicate layer was the field equipment itself: hundreds of VMS, cameras and counting stations already in daily use, of mixed generations. Rather than a blanket replacement, each device was treated on its own terms: a firmware update where the equipment was recent enough to support it, a card or module added for intermediate models, and full replacement reserved for the oldest units where nothing less would secure them. That generation-by-generation logic is what let DIRIF encrypt exchanges across the whole network without pulling any single sign, camera or loop out of service.
