Road networks

The global road network comprises more than 64 million kilometres of roads; European countries account for about 7 million kilometres. It is the most extensive transport network.

Anticipation, a prerequisite for tomorrow’s performance. Road networks have a large number of heterogeneous roads and equipment with relatively long life spans. Maintaining them in good condition is therefore a budgetary and industrial challenge. Periods of chronic underinvestment are costly: the catching up of infrastructure substance takes several generations and the socio-economic consequences are high.

It is, therefore, a question of :

evaluating the effects of the current budgetary framework in the medium and long term, to properly adjust public policies.
prioritising the allocation of available resources according to the value produced by the infrastructure.

Should road users or worksite productivity be given priority? Road network managers are faced with a growing volume of road and bridge renewal work, resulting in an increase in the number of worksites to be organised on the roads. The distribution of capacity between these works and traffic requires complex technical and economic trade-offs.

Only a reliable projection of investment needs makes it possible to identify, in time, synergies between the renewal strategies of the families of works. These synergies make it possible to combine projects and thus to organise real leaps in performance while controlling costs.

Assess, build and run : the 3 stages to excellence

ASSESS

Before taking action, you need to assess the condition of your assets and the performance of your management processes and methods.

Together, we will:

assess and map the condition of your assets in accordance with recognised benchmarks;
estimate the economic and environmental impact of asset strategies;
carry out one-off technical audits;
analyse the maturity of your management processes, in accordance with ISO 55’001:2024 standards;
analyse your digital tools and your urbanisation in general.

Understanding and assessing how things currently work is crucial: it reveals the strengths that will enable you to make progress, as well as the weaknesses that need to be addressed.

We work with curiosity and humility, respecting the culture and history of your organisation.

BUILD

This second phase consists of designing and then deploying the technical and organisational solutions that will set your networks and your organisation on the road to performance and success.

Together, we:

build realistic and optimised asset strategies and implementation plans, aligned with your economic and environmental objectives;
deploy best practices in asset management;
train your specialists;
deploy efficient and scalable digital tools for asset management;
monitor the progress made by your teams.

We provide you with transparent advice and create an environment conducive to the development of your organisations (change management) by passing on our know-how, making our digital tools available and implementing change management programmes.

RUN

There are times when resource constraints weaken your capacity to act, or when you wish to entrust certain recurring tasks to us, on a make-or-buy basis.

Our teams offer you:

regular assistance in carrying out certain asset management tasks, such as data processing and valorisation, environmental and economic optimisation, production of planning or governance documents, etc.
asset management training programmes, designed to refresh your teams’ knowledge or prepare your new colleagues;
a range of asset management tools, through our Eqylibr® suite (www.eqylibr.com).

We act with complete transparency, making the most of your teams’ expertise and perpetuating their business knowledge. In this way, you can regain control of the activities you have outsourced to us at any time.

From rail to road...

We have been working with national and international public transport networks for over 20 years.

The beginnings of IMDM’s activity date back to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL) and its transport laboratory. We are known for our audits of the state of national rail networks from which we have derived a method adapted to road infrastructures.

This method was applied, in particular, to the audit of the French national non-concession road network, carried out in 2018; after assessing the state of the infrastructure, we defined several investment trajectories and then evaluated the effects in terms of risks on the performance of the networks.

We carry out assignments for road network managers: optimisation of infrastructure and structure management strategies, safety management audits, support and training in asset management and ISO 55’000 certification audits.

Our life cycle models and digital asset management platform are used in these assignments. Our results are used in contract negotiations between infrastructure managers and the authorities that finance infrastructure.

We also support road network managers in improving their industrial asset management practices, according to the precepts of asset management (ISO 55’000).