Ferrovial to expand AI use at Heathrow, on toll roads by 2024

Infrastructure giant Ferrovial has set up an artificial intelligence hub and plans to widen the AI use by next year at its main toll road and airport businesses, such as London’s Heathrow, the head of the hub told Reuters. Ferrovial has been providing artificial intelligence services to its businesses and employees since April after two years of work on an AI solutions centre in Spain. “We have been very fast ... Highways and airports are using artificial intelligence solutions, but the volume of technology we are going to deploy by 2024 will be much higher,” Luis Carlos Pietro Fernandez said at the Ferrovial headquarters in Madrid. The builder of highways, airports, metro lines and the largest shareholder in Heathrow Airport has recently moved its holding company to the Netherlands as part of efforts to become listed in the United States, one of its key markets. Ferrovial is working with Microsoft AI products, but has its own, completely isolated version, and is building the framework for an AI service that will help its various businesses. The hub has created a tool for Heathrow, Britain’s largest airport, to predict how passenger traffic would change if a conflict or natural disaster occurred elsewhere and affected the normal flow of passengers, Fernandez said. It can also identify anomalies, such as cracks in airport runways, making inspection work easier. Ferrovial, which is also responsible for the expansion and future operation of New York’s JFK airport, is developing tools to help identify bottlenecks at airports and quickly alert airlines in the short term. Among other things, they would be able by next year to detect when airport counters are starting to fill up and more need to be opened. <br/>