The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) has just published two new standardization documents, CEN Workshop Agreements (CWA), aimed at improving road maintenance through robotic technologies and intelligent decision-support tools.They are CWA 18175:2025 “Road maintenance operations guided by XR technologies, combined with a robotic modular platform" and CWA 18176:2025 “Decision Support System for highway maintenance planning". The aim is to improve the safety of road users and maintenance personnel, increase the efficiency of maintenance processes, minimize traffic interruptions and reduce.
These two CWAs have been proposed by the OMICRON R&D Project, financed by the European Union as part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, one of the more than 100 projects in which the Spanish Association for Standardization has participated. In this case, it was subcontracted by the project to advise on standardization aspects, and it managed the work of the group that developed both CWAs. Universities, companies and technology centres from six countries took part in their development.
CWA 18175 defines a comprehensive and flexible framework for road maintenance operations using extended reality (XR) applications integrated with a robotic modular platform. Specifically, this document provides a comprehensive methodology, with guidelines and best practices for the development of these applications, presenting the basic challenges and highlighting the most crucial aspects. It thus lays the foundations for integrating robotics into the execution of the most dangerous maintenance tasks, so that maintenance managers can focus on monitoring and controlling the system through easy-to-use extended reality applications. As a result, this methodology reduces the number of workers needed for these operations, improves efficiency and reduces execution time.
CWA 18176 describes the main functions, characteristics, information flow and elements of a decision support system for road maintenance, while proposing some guidelines for its implementation. The objective of this system is to provide condition analysis, prioritize maintenance activities, and recommend maintenance plans and work orders based on analysing data, such as the condition of infrastructure (roads, bridges, tunnels, safety elements, etc.), traffic data, and information on previous maintenance activities.
