Skip to main content

Spain needs €6.5bn road infrastructure investment, says SHA

Spain needs around €6.5 billion spent on its road infrastructure to bring it back up to ‘reasonable’ quality standard, according to a report drawn up by the Spanish Highways Association (SHA). The huge works’ bill is said by the SHA to be due to the deterioration of the roads since 1985. According to McKinsey, this investment could be reduced if tendering authorities made more effort when it came to project analysis. By improving the use of engineering services by 3% to 5% per investment, cost savings of
April 14, 2014 Read time: 1 min
Spain needs around €6.5 billion spent on its road infrastructure to bring it back up to ‘reasonable’ quality standard, according to a report drawn up by the Spanish Highways Association (SHA).

The huge works’ bill is said by the SHA to be due to the deterioration of the roads since 1985. According to McKinsey, this investment could be reduced if tendering authorities made more effort when it came to project analysis. By improving the use of engineering services by 3% to 5% per investment, cost savings of up to 40% could be gained.

Spain is increasingly distancing itself from the average investment made in engineering in Europe, as the government spends fewer funds on infrastructures despite their worsening state. According to Bricard Associates, Spanish investment in engineering comes to under 4.5% of total infrastructure investment, while the European average is 8.4%.

Related Content

  • Motorcycle-Guardrail Crashes: How can the risk of severe injury and fatality be reduced?
    July 23, 2012
    The problem: motorcyclist fatalities can occur from a variety of accidents. But in the United States in 2005, motorcyclists comprised 42% of fatalities due to guardrail collisions, whereas only 3% of vehicles on the roads were motorcycles (Gabler, 2007). More motorcyclists were killed in guardrail collisions than passengers of any other vehicle type in 2005 (Gabler, 2007). Guardrails cannot simply be removed to protect motorcyclists. However, improvements need to be made in several areas in order to keep mo
  • Visible Road Markings help older drivers and intelligent vehicles
    April 30, 2015
    The three-year Rainvision project has ended and its report on better road markings is finalised. On 9 March, the Rainvision project held its final meeting in Brussels, Belgium. Rainvision, set up in 2012 and co-financed by the European Commission, has investigated the impact of road markings on driver behaviour under different night-time weather conditions, such as dry, wet and wet-rainy. The aim is to assess how different age and gender groups adapt their driving based on the visibility and retrorefle
  • Europe’s road safety is not improving as previously
    April 3, 2012
    The latest official figures on road safety in Europe are giving cause for concern, with data showing casualty reduction has slowed. EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas recently announced a disappointing progress on casualty reduction on Europe's roads. The joint European police association, TISPOL, has added that it is also concerned that improvements in cutting fatalities on Europe’s roads significantly slowed in 2011.
  • Poland's ambitious highway construction plans
    July 10, 2012
    The European football championships are among a number of things pushing Poland's ambitious highway building programme. Patrick Smith reports. Poland is planning to spend a colossal €4.57 billion on road projects in 2009, a 35% increase over the previous year. T