César Valero

How intelligent transport systems are transforming Smart Cities.

Technology is reshaping how we move, manage urban infrastructure, and keep our roads safe. In this context, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are emerging as the backbone of smart roads and, ultimately, smart cities. Bringing together sensors, advanced software, and real-time communication, they make traffic management smarter, more efficient, and safer—while driving sustainability.

In Spain, the push for ITS is being driven by initiatives such as the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, the DGT’s ITS plan, the MOVES programme, and the Next Generation EU Funds—all of which prioritise the digital transformation of urban mobility. For local governments and public authorities, grasping the potential of these technologies is key to investing wisely and driving urban modernisation.

What Are ITS?

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are a group of technologies built into transport infrastructure to improve mobility, reduce accidents, and boost energy efficiency. They bring together sensors, control devices, digital platforms, predictive algorithms, and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication to automate and coordinate mobility in real time.

These systems range from adaptive traffic lights to large-scale networks of ITS equipment, including Variable Message Signs (VMS), cameras, radars, weather stations, and control centres. Thanks to their connectivity, each element acts as a node in a network that learns, adapts, and evolves.

ITS as the Core of Smart Roads

Smart roads are a new generation of infrastructure designed to anticipate problems and communicate with vehicles and users. On these roads, ITS make it possible to:

• Detect traffic in real time and adjust flow automatically.
• Deliver personalised alerts on roadworks, accidents, or adverse weather.
• Coordinate traffic lights based on current conditions, cutting waiting times and emissions.
• Support autonomous driving through digital signals and 5G connectivity.
• Provide data to platforms such as DGT 3.0 or Smart City Madrid to inform urban decision-making.

This approach not only improves mobility but also strengthens Intelligent Road Safety, as the systems act proactively and preventively to reduce human risk.

Real-World Applications of ITS in Spain

Spain already showcases a wide range of ITS solutions in both urban and interurban settings:

• Madrid has rolled out intelligent traffic lights that adjust in real time to the flow of vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists. These systems prioritise emergency vehicles such as ambulances and city buses, cutting response times and improving overall mobility.
• Barcelona has integrated advanced ITS platforms with a dense network of sensors across the city. This system optimises both private traffic and public transport, enabling automated real-time decisions that enhance the user experience.
• On the A-8 motorway in the Basque Country, a dynamic speed management system has been deployed, especially effective in adverse weather conditions. The infrastructure combines VMS, weather stations, and connected surveillance cameras to adjust speed limits and send automatic alerts to drivers.
• Málaga stands out for its Traffic Management Centre, which uses artificial intelligence to analyse mobility patterns. Based on this data, road signage is dynamically adjusted to reduce congestion and improve safety in real time.
• In Valencia, the city’s first SMART impact attenuator has been installed at one of its most problematic intersections. This device, equipped with PLUG&META® technology, absorbs impacts at speeds of up to 80 km/h. Its integrated light signals improve the visibility of frontal impact warnings, and in the event of an accident, it instantly notifies the City Council’s Traffic Management Centre, ensuring a rapid response. This innovation transforms traditional road equipment into an intelligent system that prevents accidents, optimises signage, and improves user safety.
• Smaller municipalities are also investing in basic ITS solutions with support from European funds. Typical examples include smart pedestrian crossings, number plate recognition cameras, and dynamic information panels—all helping to improve local mobility, reduce accidents, and modernise urban environments cost-effectively.

Benefits for Citizens and Public Administration

ITS offer clear and tangible benefits for both citizens and public authorities:

For citizens:

• Improved road safety through dynamic alerts and signals adapted to real-world conditions.
• Faster journeys across the city.
• Lower fuel consumption and reduced driving stress.
• Clear, up-to-date, and easily accessible information via apps, VMS, or digital platforms.

For public authorities:

• Smarter traffic management with no major physical infrastructure required.
• Lower operating costs thanks to automation.
• Access to valuable data for evidence-based policymaking.
• Supporting European goals for decarbonisation and sustainable urban development.

According to the Metropolitan Mobility Observatory (OMM), ITS has helped cities cut average journey times by up to 15% and CO₂ emissions by 20% in high-density areas.

A Catalyst for Public Investment and Urban Transformation

ITS are essential to the modernisation of cities, particularly for municipalities applying for European funds for sustainable mobility, digital transformation, and climate action. Thanks to their scalability, ITS solutions for cities can be rolled out in large capitals as well as small and medium-sized towns, with targeted investments and tangible short-term results.

By integrating with smart city platforms, ITS give city leaders a complete picture of urban life and empower smarter decisions on traffic management, urban planning, and public safety.

ITS are more than a technological upgrade: they form the backbone of smart cities, reshaping the way we move, connect, and live. For city councils, transport authorities, and regional governments, adopting these systems unlocks greater efficiency, safety, and sustainability.

Backed by public funding and expert partners, ITS solutions are easier than ever to deploy. The future of urban mobility is already here—and it runs on intelligence.

by César Valero

Smart Cities, an ecosystem full of opportunities

At this point we will not spend much time defining a Smart City. If you want to dive into the concept of the Smart City, we invite you to review the article on what a Smart City is that we already shared on this topic.

To complement this information, today we will explore some real examples of Smart City, as well as trends that, over time, are proving to have bigger impact on services to citizenship.

Some examples of Smart City

The United Arab Emirates have created a city whose objective is not only sustainability, but also to be self-sufficient in natural resources. It is the City of Masdar, in Abu Dhabi. It hosts intelligent buildings that self-regulate the interior temperature, and systems to minimize the effects of the sun. Public transport is autonomous and the electricity grid is supplied 100% by solar panels.

New York is one of the most populous cities in the world, and one of the benchmarks in Smart City in the United States. In 2015, the so-called 'BigBelly' were introduced, rubbish bins equipped with wireless sensors to control their capacity, allowing the waste collection service to program routes more intelligently. This system includes a solar-powered trash compactor that helps increase the container's capacity by five.

In Amsterdam, 67% of journeys through the city center are made by bicycle. Although surprising, bike traffic jams happen usually at rush hour. In recent years, the city has deployed a network of sensors and a traffic management system for bicycle users, in such a way that, during those hours of greatest occupation, alternative routes can be defined and proposed to users to speed up travel .

The case of Barcelona

We can also find many examples of Smart City projects in Spain, for example, in Barcelona.

Urban transport systems have introduced hybrid buses, solar panels on bus shelters and the routes of the bus network have been optimized to be able to make 95% of trips with a maximum of one transfer between two destinations in any city . All this thanks to big data and the analysis of the influx of users and their routes.

Waste management has also incorporated digital technology in a similar way to New York. A container system with the capacity to generate a vacuum system allows the elimination of bad odours, at the same time, it incorporates available capacity sensors in real time that communicate to a centralized system that allows optimal routes to be optimized every day.

A smart street lighting system with low-energy bulbs and sensors that can measure humidity, temperature, air pollution, and the presence of people or noise is used throughout the city. In this way, the lighting intensity is adapted autonomously, reducing energy consumption. This is usually one of the first measures deployed in any Smart City as it offers direct savings on energy bills at a very reasonable cost and with technology that has already been widely tested in a real environment.

Trends for Smart Cities

Smart Cities are not a thing of the future, they are very much of the present. We refer to the previous examples on how a public service can be optimized with the application of technological projects. But not everything goes. Disruptive solutions can be invented and ingenious projects deployed, but in the medium term, which ones will actually have real success colonizing the majority of cities? What ideas or technologies or services will be the ones that will capture the attention and budgets of municipal administrations?

The first reflection is that this will depend on each city. Depending on your location, population, culture, idiosyncrasy or even the political profile of your rulers at a given time, you will define your priority challenges. Some will advocate for traffic management and sustainable mobility, others for water management and others for citizen security among many possible lines of work.

Identifying those motivations to submit the most suitable proposals will increase the probability that an opportunity will become a real project.

That said, if we statistically analyze the most common projects, we see common trends.

Technological infrastructure Data interoperability

A Smart City would not be such if it does not have sensors that collect a flow of data on which decisions can be made to improve or manage the resources available. This information already demonstrates a large volume and will be exponentially growing in the future. For this reason, it is necessary to work on sufficient storage capacity, on robust communication networks and on management software that is as centralized and open as possible to guarantee the correct processing of data in real time and interoperability between services and administrations. Without investing in these technological infrastructure capacities, it is almost impossible to advance in the deployment of the Smart City.

Cybersecurity

All data collected and stored is highly valuable information that must be protected to prevent cybercrime. Let us remember that many of them may refer to personal data or behavioral habits of citizens, who expect maximum privacy in exchange for providing them.

For this reason, cybersecurity is one of the critical aspects that administrations must work on. Citizens will only join the wave of the Smart City if they feel to a certain degree confidence that their data is protected, and that there is no fraudulent, partisan or economic use of it.

Smart traffic management

In large cities, traffic is usually a major problem that generates major headaches for managers and citizens. In addition, its consequences in terms of air pollution and noise are very negative.

The implementation of technology (cameras, sensors...) that allows obtaining real-time data on traffic in order to optimize routes is an obvious line of work. For this, the use of classic urban equipment as a platform in which to integrate digital technology should be considered. For example, intelligent containment systems can contain impacts when there are road exits, but also prevent accidents and provide statistical information in real time.

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First parapet approved with active safety

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Public lighting service or waste management

Public lighting represents a very high expense for the city's bill. For many years now it has been confirmed that an investment in autonomously controlled LED technology for lighting regulation is a technically robust and profitable project in the medium term.

The digitization of the waste collection service has started later but, as we have explained, there are already numerous pilot projects in this line.

Useful projects for Smart Cities

Smart Cities cannot be the new excuse to place technological services without value. Each proposal must quantitatively demonstrate resource efficiency, sustainability, useful information, or a better experience for people. And ideally several of these benefits combined.

At Metalesa we have been working for many years to provide optimal solutions for Smart Cities, thinking of the ultimate benefit that citizens will obtain, for example, our Metaurban® SMART, the world's first smart urban parapet with active road safety, which not only contains, but also prevents and informs. An innovation that invites the private sector to transform urban equipment and take it to a new dimension by integrating it into the Smart City ecosystem.

Whether you are from a public administration and are looking for ideas, or a company interested in developing new products and looking for alliances, do not hesitate and contact us. We will be happy to help you and explore ways of collaboration.

by César Valero

Does 5G sounds familiar to you? How can you help the cities of the future?

Even if you don't know exactly what it is, you've surely heard of something called '5G'. 5G connectivity will be the fifth generation of communication networks, and will progressively replace the current 4G network. Currently, we already live in a hyper-connected environment and in cities designed under smart city models specially built to make life easier for people, respect the environment, and in general, to evolve towards more efficient cities in every way. But 5G connectivity opens the doors to a new world where we can go much further.

Normally starting in urban environments, this new generation of wireless connectivity allows the deployment of an immense network of sensors and interconnected communication nodes that will be able to satisfy new needs, for example, improvement in road safety. But before we get to that point, let's go in parts.

What are the advantages of 5G connectivity?

• More speed: Technological revolution and speed go hand in hand. With 5G connectivity you can navigate up to 10 times faster than with current 4G networks. This will not change our lives in terms of the level of service to which we are accustomed when we surf the internet from our Smart Phone, but it represents a differential change for the operation of services in which immediacy is critical.
• Less latency time: Latency refers to the response time of the network, which will allow us to connect practically in real time, without waiting.
• More devices connected at the same time: Have you ever been to a massive concert or a sporting event and have run out of coverage? These limitations are normal with the 4G network but we will forget about them with the 5G.

But this new technology goes far beyond being able to connect many mobile phones at the same time; Any electronic device may be connected, for example, vehicles, urban equipment, industrial robots, or any device that we have at home.

5G will improve the mobility of cities. How?

Increasing security in cities is one of the potential applications of this new hyper-connected era. In this sense, from Metalesa it seems essential to know current and future technological trends, since, like any other business that has traditionally been disconnected from digital technology, the deployment of the 5G network will radically transform the way we understand mobility, urban or interurban, enabling a new world of possibilities for improvement in Road Safety. Undoubtedly, this 5G technology will be a turning point in the user experience and in the services provided by a company like ours.

Reduction in the number of accidents

As we have already mentioned, 5G will considerably reduce the response time of any wirelessly connected technological device, which facilitates better and more efficient traffic management and safety at the wheel.

For example, a car will be able to detect pedestrians or cyclists from a distance, thanks to wireless technology that will allow it to communicate with sensors located at key points in cities: traffic lights, streetlights, urban parapets, bollards, acoustic screens, cyclopedestrian railings, etc ... The fully autonomous car is closer than we think.

Just as cars will communicate with street furniture, city traffic itself will benefit from being able to adapt the circulation of areas with higher traffic density to other less congested areas.

5G connectivity will enable greater dynamism and increase efficiency in infrastructure management both in cities and on roads, contributing beneficially to a sustainable commitment. There are no limits to imagine how digital technology can be implemented on parapets, transitions or imposts, and of course on any element of railway equipment.

Great capacities for data processing

The goodness of 5G technology will be leveraged on the ability to deploy a data processing infrastructure that allows transforming a growing volume of data into useful information for decision-making and city management, in such a way that it offers an effective service to the citizen.

We have been talking about Smart Cities for decades, and although we are increasingly living in a more hyper-connected environment, we still have a long way to go to become a 100% autonomous society free of dangers. Be that as it may, citizens also have our share of responsibility, although technology is making our lives easier and safer every time.

From Metalesa we want to mark a change in society and help develop products for the Smart Cities of the future.

And you, how do you imagine the city of the future?

by César Valero