F. Flores, Secretary of Infrastructure: Spanish is a model of success

meherika@sendno

Among the main challenges posed by the  Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda are preserving our infrastructure and improving its functionality. But the main task is to face the double transformation: the digital and the green. We advance you some brushstrokes. In Economía 3 we chat with Francisco Javier Flores , Secretary of Infrastructure of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma) . Spain's challenges -What are the main challenges facing the infrastructure sector in Spain? The main one is that we manage to efficiently preserve this great heritage. We have invested a lot in new assets and now we have to maintain a proportional level of maintenance. The greater the maturity of the network, the greater the conservation needs. If we do not do so, we will continue to increase spending on emergency actions, which is neither sustainable nor efficient.



A second challenge is to improve the functionality of existing infrastructures so that they adapt to the new mobility conditions; taking greater advantage of these without having to create new ones. A paradigmatic example of the above is the significant investment that Mitma will make over the next few years in actions to improve said functionality on the various toll highways that have been released since  and that, by absorbing Job Function Email List a greater volume of traffic, demand new needs. For example, the creation of new accesses or the remodeling of existing links. But, the great challenge for infrastructure and all sectors of our society is to face the double transformation: the digital and the green. On the one hand, how we introduce the opportunities that the digital world offers to our infrastructures, both in terms of users and how we plan, project, build and manage them. On the other hand, in how we participate in the decarbonization of our society; contributing to carbon reduction both from the perspective of our own activity and contributing to the promotion of the electrification of mobility.



At the head of Europe – Are we doing well if we compare ourselves with the rest of the countries in the European Union? Without a doubt, in general terms, the development of transport infrastructure in Spain is a model of success. In a few decades, Spain managed to reverse the infrastructure deficit it had in relation to its surrounding countries when it joined the EU in 1985. In relative terms, we are currently a very mature country in terms of transport infrastructure networks: European leaders in high-speed kilometers, in kilometers of high-capacity roads, in container port traffic and world leaders in airport operations by number of passengers. . Focused on modernization – One of the biggest problems in the sector is its lack of modernization. What is the Ministry doing about this? What we now have to do is focus on modernizing the existing infrastructure networks. Modernize in its broad sense: modifying functionalities, expanding capacity, conserving more efficiently so that the user perceives greater comfort and security and incorporating the new tools that technology offers us for management. For example, in the State Highway Network , this year the budget for conservation has been  million euros, which represents  more compared to  and which accumulates to the increase of  that already had the  budget compared to .