The study entitled "Traffic prediction based on license plate scanning. Observability and optimal location of traffic counters", by María Pilar Jiménez Gómez, has won the 7th abertis Prize – in the doctoral thesis category – on Transport Infrastructure Management, which is awarded annually by the UPC-abertis chair.
The winning study develops different mathematical models in order to reproduce traffic conditions, using the licence plate scanner and proposing methods to optimise the location of the scanning points. The ultimate aim is to provide solutions to mobility problems in cities.

María Pilar Jiménez was awarded the prize, which is worth €10,000 and includes publication of the paper, at a ceremony chaired by the Councillor for Territorial Policy and Public Works of the Catalan Government, Joaquim Nadal, the Business and Operations General Manager of abertis, Josep Martínez Vila, and the Vice-Chancellor of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), Antoni Giró. The event took place today at the Civil Engineering School of Barcelona of the UPC.

The seventh abertis Prize is the first for which two categories have been established: Doctoral thesis, and final degree or master’s degree dissertation. This second category, with a prize worth €4,000, had two ex aequo winners: "Pooling of transport infrastructure concessions in Project Finance", by Juan Argote Caballero, and "Traffic stream macro and microanalysis on the AP-7 turnpike", by Jordi Soriguera Farrés. A special mention was also given to the paper entitled "Dynamic OD estimation in freeway paths using traffic counts. Application to the E4-South in Stockholm", by Manuel Valls Comamala. Three doctoral theses and six final dissertations were presented for the latest prize, which was notable for the geographical diversity and quality of the papers, many of which were written in English.

An international competition when it is held for the eighth time

The next time the competition is held, the abertis Prize will be open to students from universities in France and Italy through the Seats that abertis is going to set up with universities in these countries, following the company/university partnership model which it has been developing in Spain for the last eight years.
The abertis Prize will thus consist of two national competitions in Spain, Italy and France. From the winners in each country, the European Transport Infrastructure Management Research Prize will be awarded to one winner in each category. The first awards ceremony for the international prize will take place in 2011 at the Civil Engineering School of the UPC in Barcelona.

The abertis Prize is an initiative promoted by the UPC-abertis chair in Transport Infrastructure Management and is one of its main initiatives for the promotion of research in this field. The  aim of the UPC-abertis chair, created in 2003 by abertis and the UPC and managed by Professor Francesc Robusté, is to promote training and research in the field of transport infrastructure management.