Betar

Tell us about your professional career and your current position at Autoestradas do Atlântico (AEA).

I’m a civil engineer, I started working as a road designer. In 1991 I joined Brisa and in 1999 I came to Autoestradas do Atlântico. At the moment, Autoestradas do Atlântico (AEA) has an Infrastructure Operations Department, which is made up of three services, tolls, operations and maintenance, and I’m responsible for the maintenance service, which includes the management of the Works of Art, pavements, signalling, drainage…

AEA operates the A8 and A15 motorways. What are the biggest challenges?

Maintenance is always needed, but especially now that we’re almost at the end of the concession, which expires in 2028. AEA was created in 1998. At that time we inherited half of the concession, around 80 kilometres, and built the remaining 90 kilometres, more or less. Some of the works were already several years old, for example, CRIL was built in the 80s. The older they are, the more attention they require, naturally.
This concession is a first-phase PPP. We’re responsible for the traffic, we get the tolls and we have to manage that money for maintenance. In other words, if traffic decreases, as it did during the 2008 crisis, we have to take the loss.

What is your strategy for becoming a benchmark company in road infrastructure management?

From the outset, we focussed on two main areas: the management of Works of Art and pavements. These are our most important and valuable assets. We need to have them in good condition because safety is at stake. When the concession was created, Betar was at the start of the Works of Art management, it was one of the initial bets and has always been very important to us, to ensure that nothing fails. Betar has carried out several Works of Art projects for the concession itself and has always carried out inspections. Our structure is small, so we have to subcontract, but not on the cheap, we prefer to create partnerships. Just as Betar is responsible for the Works of Art, we’ve also had a company working with us on paving since the beginning. In almost every area we have the right partner, which gives us confidence. It’s been a good strategy.

For the last 20 years, Betar has been providing Works of Art management, supervision and inspection services. How has the collaboration been?

Betar understands our needs and adjusts to them, which is something I really appreciate. They are always available to participate in solutions. For example, at one point we set Tiago Mendonça a challenge: to have a management system for signalling gantries, similar to the Works of Art Management system (GOA). I don’t know if it was because of us or not, but Betar created GOA Gestão de Pórticos, which met our needs and has worked with other clients. We have a very close collaboration with good results.

How is the health of the A8 and A15 roadworks?

It’s fine. They are old works and always have one pathology or another, but in general we have a fairly healthy network. The advantage of periodic inspections is that we can act in advance, we’re not waiting for the work to have serious pathologies before intervening, we’re always doing small jobs to ensure good conditions. Budgets are never unlimited, you have to spend your money in the right places, and that’s where Betar helps us, especially to be able to act before the work reaches a stage where the investment would have to be much higher. One of the problems with major repairs is traffic congestion; the more complicated the pathologies, the longer the intervention and the greater the interference with traffic.

How do you rate the GOA Works of Art management system?
I think we were the first concessionaire, after Brisa, to use GOA and now it’s in almost all of them. It’s an asset. In our case, the inspections are contracted to Betar, which uploads the information to the system. We can access the information whenever we want and make a record, which we haven’t felt the need to do because Betar is here every year. They carry out the main inspections every 6 years, on all the works, and routine inspections every other year, but as it’s staggered they’re always around, which gives us greater security.

The AEA has had a decisive impact on the development of the western region and on tourism…

Yes, there’s a lot of tourism, traffic has risen a lot, it’s really been a development factor for the region, and sometimes we feel that pressure from the town halls themselves. This area is moving a lot, Óbidos, Nazaré, Peniche; and then there are a lot of people who, because of teleworking, have moved here from Lisbon, especially to Mafra. There are also many foreigners living here, retirees who have settled in the area.

This interview is an integral part of Revista Artes & Letras #161, february 2024
Partially automatic translation from portuguese: some expressions may differ from their actual meaning.