The Fourth Abertis International Prize for Transport Infrastructure has been awarded to Dr. Julien Monteil, in the doctoral thesis category, for his work entitled “Investigating the effects of cooperative vehicles on highway traffic flow homogenization: analytical and simulation studies“. In the dissertations and final theses or masters category the winner was Irene Martínez Santamaría for her work “Effects of freeway traffic homogeneity on lane changing activity: the role of dynamic speed limits”. Both were this year’s winners of the national prizes in their respective categories, which were conferred by the Abertis Chair in France and Spain.

The International Prize is awarded annually by the Abertis Chair to single out the best works selected from among the finalists of the local editions of the prize in Brazil, Chile, Spain, France and Puerto Rico. Some of these young researchers are expected to spend time working at one of the Abertis Group companies around the globe.

The International Prize award ceremony was held in the Leonardo da Vinci auditorium of the Abertis Group’s headquarters in Barcelona and was attended by the secretary for Territory and Mobility of the Catalonian Regional Government, Ricard Font; the Chairman of Abertis, Salvador Alemany; the Executive Vice-President and CEO of Abertis, Francisco Reynés; the vice-rector of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Sisco Vallverdú; the director of the Abertis Chair in Spain, Francesc Robusté, and his counterpart in France, Simon Cohen; and the director of Institutional Relations and RSC of Abertis, Sergi Loughney. 

The twelfth edition of the Abertis Prizes of the Abertis Chair in Spain were also awarded, in partnership with the UPC – BarcelonaTech, and went to Ms. Mari Paz Linares Herreros, in the doctoral thesis category, for a work entitled “A mesoscopic traffic simulation based dynamic traffic assignment”, and in the category of dissertations and final theses or masters to Irene Martínez Josemaría, for the same work that won her the Fourth International Prize: “Effects of freeway traffic homogeneity on lane changing activity: the role of dynamic speed limits”.

The Abertis Prizes awarded in each country have an economic endowment of €10,000Mn in the thesis category and of €4,000 in the dissertation category. Work is assessed by a panel of experts in the different fields of engineering and transport infrastructure.

International Network of Abertis Academic Chairs
The international scope of the Abertis Academic Chair, created in 2003, is continually growing and underpins the Company’s commitment to the academic community, contributing to research on the impact of major works in different regions, thereby improving the quality of life of their inhabitants.
The International Network of Abertis Academic Chairs extends to Spain, France, Puerto Rico, Chile and Brazil, and works in partnership with the following universities: Universitat Politècnica of Catalunya-BarcelonaTech (Barcelona, Spain); IFSTTAR, École des Ponts–ParisTech, Fondation des Ponts, (Paris, France); University of Puerto Rico (San Juan, Puerto Rico); Pontifical Catholic University of Chile  (Santiago, Chile); and University of São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil).

Photos (Flickr)