Ferrovial Servicios enables cities to save 20% by using intelligent services

Ferrovial Servicios has presented its new Cities division to roll out the Intelligent Cities services offer, which will save city governments up to 20%. This approach is applicable to the 150 largest cities in Spain, which spend close to 10 billion euro per year on municipal services, and in 200 cities in the UK, which spend around 17 billion euro. Ferrovial Servicios has created a new division to launch its "Intelligent Cities" municipal services offer, which could save city governments up to 20%. Spain's 150 largest cities expend close to 10 billion euro on services of this kind, while the 200 largest cities in the UK spend around 17 billion euro. The new Cities division aims to develop the intelligent municipal services offer and drive technology development to make the provision of services to citizens more efficient. A team of more than 40 will focus on developing this offer, which includes building, infrastructure and sports installation maintenance, asset management, waste treatment, street cleaning, and facility management. Ferrovial has also signed an agreement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop innovative solutions for intelligent cities. Santiago Olivares, CEO of Ferrovial Servicios: “The intelligent cities concept means more than just sensors and technology. It's a new model for managing municipal services which focuses on efficiency, improving quality for citizens, and seeking savings, where innovation and funding will redefine the relationship between the city, the citizen and business." Remuneration based on Service Quality Indicators The company has created a management approach for intelligent cities by re-engineering services to improve performance and attain savings by developing quality parameters on which supplier remuneration can be based. In Birmingham, more than 1,000 service quality indicators have been established in the areas where Ferrovial operates; one year after inception, the results have provided a 20% improvement in service efficiency for the city, coupled with higher citizen satisfaction indices. This broad set of indicators covers four areas: environment, infrastructure, energy and customer service. Cities can outsource these areas, where the scope for efficiency improvement is greatest. Santiago Olivares: "We developed the processes and methodology based on our experience with public and private sector client relations and with management and control systems, allowing for the creation of policies, remuneration criteria, penalties and also levels of improvement." The company estimates average savings of 15% to 20% in those four for a city with around 100,000 inhabitants. Innovation: Collaboration with MIT "Innovation is going to be vital in the coming decades in view of the major changes in managing services within cities in the future. As a result, our company has teamed up with MIT, a global leader in engineering and innovation, to lead this transformation of our cities." Working groups have been created in which Ferrovial specialists, working with MIT scientists, have identified the areas in which the two partners will cooperate during their five-year agreement. At the end of last year, Ferrovial signed a 5 million dollar agreement with MIT for the joint development of research projects with a view to achieving significant improvements and innovative services in energy efficiency, among other areas.