Unlocking the future of roads: a global benchmark on operators’ technology maturity

Technology integration is reshaping transport operations across departments, but just how ready are today’s road infrastructure operators to embrace digital transformation?

McKinsey & Company’s Alberto Chiulli unveiled an exclusive global benchmarking system that assesses the technology maturity of operators across regions, covering digital asset management, automation, data integration, and smart maintenance practices. Signor Chiulli offered an enthralling, comparative view across diverse players, highlighting innovation gaps, and outlining actionable strategies for operators, regulators, and technology providers to accelerate transformation.

So how does the industry move from pilot to scale, and what are the best-in-class operators around the world doing to future-proof their infrastructure? One way in which it is doing just that is through the implementation and deployment of technology.

“The main technology trends include Generative AI, automation, robotics, digital twinnng, digitalisation, IoT and smart sensors, with a focus on procurement, IT, maintenance, engineering, R&D, logistics and finance,” he said.

That’s a lot of different pieces to an already elaborate puzzle, but the bigger picture is that the integration of technology within the infrastructure sector is rapidly growing, reshaping operations, driving transformative change across multiple sectors.

The next steps are clear: accelerate the process where pilots become real-world deployments in order to update and upgrade our ageing infrastructure. The digital world is improving the holy trinity of revenue, cost and safety – embracing it has to be a strategic priority and Chiulli provided a handy list of the 10 technologies that road operators use to deliver safer, smarter and more efficient networks:

Robotics & Automation
Incident detection
Digital Twins
Integrated traffic management systems
Predictive maintenance
Remote inspections
Smart parking
Dynamic tolling
Toll fraud detection
CAPEX planning and prioritization