The ROADIS story: Driving innovation through low-code-powered highway management

About ROADIS

ROADIS is a Spanish multinational company with global reference in the development, operation, and management of essential infrastructure assets. It currently manages 1,882 km of toll roads in operation in 10 concessions across five countries: Brazil (681 km), Mexico (155 km, two concessions), India (710 km, four concessions), Portugal (272 km, two concessions), and Spain (64 km).

Also a prominent player in the Indian highways industry, ROADIS is actively involved in the construction and maintenance of highways and toll plazas. With a focus on Public-Private Partnerships, the organization operates during the O&M (Operations and Maintenance) phases, ensuring a safe and efficient traffic flow, routine maintenance, and environmental protection.

The Challenge

The organization manages a large highway network of about 710 kilometers across four areas in India. Every year, there are approximately 3,000 reported accidents, 7,200 instances of clearing encroachments, 3,000 cases of removing deceased animals, and various other incidents on the roads.

These increasing numbers come with a significant need in reporting demands from both stakeholders and the client—a trend that is expected to continue in the future. Monitoring multiple assets, ensuring road safety, and managing incidents at sites were complex tasks that required a lot of time and personnel. The team struggled with documentation, incident tracking, and preparing regular reports. The need to identify defects, rectify damages within SLAs (Service-level Agreements), and track them to closure added to the operational difficulties. The Route Patrol team, currently handling many responsibilities, recognized the urgent need for a digital tool to improve the efficiency and accuracy of their daily operations.

Introduction to Zoho Creator through RCI Digital

Since ROADIS was already using ManageEngine, they were familiar with the Zoho brand. And after thorough evaluation, Kaushik and Ashwani Sharma, COO at ROADIS, zeroed in on Zoho Creator through RCI Digital, a trusted Zoho Partner. Zoho Creator ticked all their boxes—from quick development and dedicated support teams to workflow automation and integration capabilities. The introduction to the low-code platform was timely as it promised to streamline their processes and alleviate their pain points.

The solution

Highway management on Zoho Creator

Recognizing the critical importance of incident management in ensuring road safety and minimizing disruptions, ROADIS, with the expertise of RCI Digital, implemented a robust incident management system (IMS) using Zoho Creator. This system was designed to address the specific challenges faced by the organization in tracking and responding to incidents promptly. Before Zoho Creator, the organization relied on manual forms and spreadsheets for patrolling team information. This process was time-consuming and prone to errors. The implementation of a low-code-powered IMS by RCI Digital brought a revolutionary change.

Modules within the IMS

Incident management

The solution captures details related to various incidents, including accidents, lane closures, dead animal clearings, vehicle breakdowns, and chemical spillages. It allows for real-time reporting, fostering collaboration among multiple teams for prompt incident resolution. The system tracks progress from incident response time to closure, ensuring a timely and well-coordinated approach. Zoho Creator's RAD capabilities allowed for iterative improvements to the IMS. As new requirements emerged or as the team identified areas for enhancement, the low-code platform facilitated rapid prototyping and deployment of updates. This agile approach ensured that the solution evolved in tandem with the changing needs of ROADIS.

Encroachment management

Facilitating route patrol teams, the IMS collects details related to encroachments—whether permanent or temporary, unauthorized access, and illegal posters. It tracks the progress of encroachment removal, ensuring a systematic and timely approach.

Defect management

The IMS captures civil and electrical asset damages before assigning issues to respective maintenance teams and tracks them until rectification. This module streamlines the entire process, enhancing efficiency in defect identification, assignment, and resolution.

Routine maintenance management

The IMS enables maintenance teams to upload monthly routine maintenance plans. It automatically assigns routine maintenance tasks to vendor teams and records daily progress, ensuring adherence to schedules and timely completion of maintenance activities.

Vehicle management

For route patrol vehicles, ambulances, cranes, and other project vehicles, the system documents vehicle logs, fuel logs, and maintenance logs. This ensures 24x7 patrolling across the project stretch, contributing to enhanced safety and timely incident response.

GIS integration

Creating a digital twin of major assets across the site, the IMS captures GPS locations of incidents and defects. Users can pick incident chainage locations based on GPS using a mobile or tablet. Stakeholders can visualize incidents/defects on a map layer, enhancing spatial understanding and facilitating strategic decision-making. The usage of widgets enables seamless interaction with Google Maps directly from the application, providing visual representation and geographic context for reported incidents.

Integration with Vehicle Tracking System (VTS)

The IMS seamlessly integrates with the Vehicle Tracking System (VTS)—a technology that enables the real-time monitoring and management of vehicles—via APIs, ensuring data reconciliation. This integration enhances the accuracy and reliability of incident data by leveraging real-time vehicle tracking information.

Public engagement

The IMS actively engages road users in providing feedback on the services delivered by patrolling teams. This two-way communication contributes to efficient incident management, providing valuable insights for continuous improvement.

Analytics and reporting with dashboards

The IMS offers robust analytics and reporting capabilities, presenting data in intuitive dashboards. These dashboards provide a visual representation of incident patterns, blackspot locations, and accident causes. Stakeholders can easily interpret complex data, leading to quicker decision-making based on real-time insights.

Key benefits

The incident management system built on Zoho Creator has completely transformed ROADIS's approach to safety, maintenance, and overall highway management. The system's multifaceted functionality addresses numerous scenarios and contributes to informed decision-making for the continuous improvement of highway infrastructure and safety measures. The transition to a cloud-based system has also improved accessibility and data management, facilitating remote operations and real-time updates.

Instead of spending valuable time documenting, reviewing data sanity, and preparing reports, the teams can now rely on the automated reporting features of Zoho Creator.

The road ahead

Going forward, ROADIS plans to develop additional applications for effective highway asset management. With a keen focus on innovation, the organization aims to set new benchmarks in highway management, delivering enhanced solutions for a safer and smoother travel experience.