Abertis Infraestructuras : The Abertis-UPC Chair awards the XIII Abertis Prize for Management of Transportation Infrastructures

24 May 2016

• This year's XIII Abertis Prize awarded by the Abertis-UPC Chair has gone to PhD. Carlos Llorca García (Universitat Politècnica de València) for his work entitled Analysis of the vehicle overtakings in conventional roads and modelling proposal for the improvement of their design and signposting.
• In the Master category, the prize has gone to Meritxell Pachecho Paneque (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) and her dissertation entitled Traffic parameters estimations from the analysis of connected vehicles data.
• A total of 37 candidacies for both prizes (17 for the category of Doctoral Thesis and 20 for the category of Shorter Dissertation, End of Degree or Master Projects), the highest number in the 13 years of life of this Abertis Prize.
• The Minister of Territory and Sustainability of the Government of Catalonia, Josep Rull; the Chairman of Abertis, Salvador Alemany; and the Rector of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Prof. Enric Fossas, have awarded the prizes to the winners.

The doctoral thesis Analysis of the vehicle overtakings in conventional roads and modelling proposal for the improvement of their design and signposting, by PhD. Carlos Llorca García (Universitat Politècnica de València), has won the XIII Abertis Prize for Research on Management of Transportation Infrastructures and Road Safety, awarded by the Abertis-UPC Chair. This prize, endowed with €10,000, stands out the best doctoral thesis presented in different Spanish universities during 2015.

In the shorter dissertation and end of degree or Master's project category, the prize went to Meritxell Pachecho Paneque, (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech) for the research project on Traffic parameters estimations from the analysis of connected vehicles data. This category is endowed with €4,000 for the winner.

This last edition of the Abertis-UPC Chair Prize has been the most successful in terms of candidacies in its 13 years of history. In total, 37 candidacies have been received (17 for the Doctoral Thesis category, and 20 for the Shorter Dissertation, End of Degree or Master project category); record numbers in both categories.

The prize-winning ceremony, which took place today at the School of Civil Engineering of Barcelona, was attended by the Minister of Territory and Sustainability of the Catalan Government, Josep Rull; the Chairman of Abertis, Salvador Alemany; and the Rector of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech (UPC), Prof. Enric Fossas.

The Abertis-UPC Prize winners will take part in the V International Abertis Chair Prize that will be awarded in October in Santiago de Chile, among the pool of national winning projects of the International Abertis Chairs Network.

International Abertis Chairs Network

The international presence of the Abertis Chair is greater and greater and it confirms the company's commitment with the academic world, contributing to the research on the effect of big construction on the territory, improving inhabitant's life standards.

The International Abertis Chairs Network is nowadays active in Spain, France, Puerto Rico, Chile and Brazil, in collaboration with the following universities: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech (Barcelona, Spain); IFSTTAR, École des Ponts-ParisTech, Fondation des Ponts, (Paris, France); Puerto Rico University (San Juan, Puerto Rico); Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Santiago, Chile) and São Paulo University (São Paulo, Brazil).

The Abertis-UPC Chair was created in 2003 Abertis and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech. PhD Francesc Robusté manages it, and its main goal is to drive formation and research in the field of transportation infrastructure management and road safety.