Each year, the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA)*, the worldwide association for the owners and operators of toll facilities, presents the Toll Excellence Awards to highlight the very best projects, innovations, and solutions from the international tolling industry. IBTTA announced that Egis has been awarded a 2020 Toll Excellence Award for Private Sector Innovation for its Virtual Reality Training Program designed to eliminate risk and danger during onsite emergency instruction.

“Egis is the winner of this year’s Toll Excellence Award for Private Sector Innovation for developing an innovative Virtual Reality (VR) Training program to teach and certify safety patrollers to perform incident management for toll bridges, tunnels, and highways while completely eliminating the risk and danger of on-site emergency instruction to trainers and students,” said Samuel Johnson, Interim CEO of the Transportation Corridor Agencies and President of IBTTA. “Egis, along with six other 2020 Toll Excellence Award winners, continues to implement systems and strategies that are revolutionizing transportation throughout the globe and helping lead the way in creating transportation systems to keep our customers moving safely and efficiently.”

Richard Lengrand, General Manager of Egis Exploitation Aquitaine said, “Egis' primary concern is the safety of our customers and our staff. We are honored to receive the IBTTA Toll Excellence Award. It is a notable achievement for Egis’ global teams.”

Focus on the virtual reality training programme developed by Egis.

The job of patroller is extremely dangerous. In France, an average of 10 patroller vehicles are hit per month while the patrollers are securing an event, leading to 16 injured patrollers and one death. And, training in this environment is even more dangerous. On-site training is also very time-consuming and expensive; and the ability to replicate many different event types and conditions is severely limited. Egis Virtual Reality Training has changed all of that.

Egis, with the support of the Concessionaire Atlandes, and in collaboration with Immersive Factory**, has developed a series of 15- minute learning modules to train motorway patrollers using virtual reality technology on the A63 Motorway, a 105-kilometer toll road between Bordeaux, France, and Spain. The Virtual Reality Training is a total immersion in the working environment. The surrounding conditions such as traffic noise, vehicle speed and weather events are reproduced in very realistic detail – allowing the student to experience a variety of real-world emergencies in real-time. With the new Virtual Reality Training, A63 patrollers can be safely trained and tested in motorway safety and callout procedures by simply donning a virtual reality headset and using the handheld controls.

You can learn more about the Virtual Reality Training here.

* The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) is the worldwide association for the owners and operators of toll facilities and the businesses that serve tolling. Founded in 1932, IBTTA has members in 21 countries on six continents. Through advocacy, thought leadership and education, members are implementing state-of-the-art, innovative user-based transportation financing solutions to address the critical infrastructure challenges of the 21st Century. For more information, visit www.ibtta.org or Twitter @IBTTA or #TollRoads. Each year, IBTTA presents the Toll Excellence Awards to highlight the very best projects, innovations, and solutions from the international tolling industry. The awards encourage the industry to share and celebrate new ideas and emerging practices in six categories: Administration and Finance; Customer Service and Marketing Outreach; Social Responsibility; Technology; Toll Operations, Engineering and Maintenance; and Private Sector Innovation.

** A start-up specializing in the design of virtual training.