Kapsch gantry has wooden heart

Familiar product is given new spin by making motorway structure out of wood
By Adam Hill December 1, 2022 Read time: 2 mins
Rethinking an established concept: the Green Gantry (© Kapsch TrafficCom)

Kapsch TrafficCom has put a new spin on a familiar piece of steel and aluminium infrastructure: the motorway gantry.

The company's Green Gantry is made from wood but can still support signs, sensors and so on, and has a modular design.

Kapsch says this "allows an installation comparable to standard steel bridges and also with the same service life and maintenance intensity".

Each steel gantry creates over 30 tons of CO2 during its production, the company says - but the wood version "binds more than 20 tons of CO2 and thus has a positive carbon footprint" and "paves the way for sustainable road infrastructure".

Guaranteed for 20 years, the project is funded by the Waldfonds, an initiative of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management and is carried out as part of the Think.Wood programme of the Austrian Wood initiative.

Kapsch says the product is protected from water, ice and snow and, even after it is dismantled, "does not pollute the environment, as no harmful chemical substances are used to treat the wood".

Katharina Rynesch, innovation manager at Kapsch TrafficCom, says the design complies with all relevant European standards.

"Our road infrastructure is currently a blind spot in efforts to make the transport sector more sustainable," she explains.

"With our Green Gantry, we hope on the one hand to contribute to greater sustainability, but on the other hand also to demonstrate that even concepts that have been established for many years can be rethought and made sustainable."

Air Quality & Weather Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Austria’s answer to temporary traffic problems
    December 22, 2015
    ASFINAG has developed a mobile traffic monitoring and guidance system through a pre-commercial procurement project. Drivers have become accustomed to roadside and gantry-mounted traffic guidance and control systems along the major roads and main motorway sections. But there are occasions when intense monitoring is required on a temporary basis along motorway sections without traffic guidance and control systems and on federal and national roads too. Examples include the monitoring of the traffic flow during
    Read More
  • MaaS is at the ‘baby steps’ stage – but needs to get up and running soon
    April 16, 2018
    Data sharing between organisations remains a potential problem for Mobility as a Service projects, attendees at February's MaaS Market conference in London were told. Alan Dron listens in on the presentations.
    Read More
  • Abertis cloud brings clarity to Valencia
    May 18, 2022
    Tolling group will enable dynamic pricing in bid to reduce urban congestion and pollution
    Read More
  • ITS innovations – a change for the better?
    May 5, 2016
    Josef Czako takes a look at what the future developments may hold for both the transport sector and society. As the dust of the 2015 World Congress in Bordeaux settles, we can begin to see more clearly some of the most important future innovations in ITS are starting to be linked together: mobility as a service (MaaS), mobility pricing and autonomous vehicles. They all are based on global trends, like digitalisation, automation and servitisation.
    Read More

Highlighted Content