{"id":41015,"date":"2021-09-17T08:30:26","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T06:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/?p=41015"},"modified":"2025-12-12T11:55:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T10:55:05","slug":"what-is-flexible-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/en\/2021\/09\/what-is-flexible-infrastructure\/","title":{"rendered":"What is flexible infrastructure? (And why we need more of it)"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the pandemic hit, most international airports were faced with a similar problem: Their big, spacious terminals were suddenly empty. As passengers trickled through the tiled hallways, air conditioning units kept them cool while cleaners cleaned around them.\u00a0 From a passenger experience point of view, not much had changed. Maybe the duty free was closed, but other than that, the space you travelled around remained the same. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From an asset management point of view, this is\u00a0a serious challenge. Heating and cooling a giant open space like an airport terminal\u00a0is\u00a0costly. When those open spaces are designed for tens of thousands of people, the ratios make sense. When only a few hundred people turn up, suddenly your airport terminal isn\u2019t very efficient. Enormous spaces are great when your airport is at capacity. When it\u2019s not, they become a burden.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When\u00a0infrastructure\u00a0can\u2019t adapt to change,\u00a0we can refer to it as\u00a0inflexible\u00a0or single purpose\u00a0infrastructure.<\/strong> And this type of infrastructure is all around us.\u00a0The same pandemic challenge hit urban and interurban highways they were almost silent and ghostly and not able to fulfil their single purpose a route for vehicles from A to B, but still had to be maintained,\u00a0cleaned\u00a0and kept safe.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>What is \u2018flexible\u2019 infrastructure?\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Inflexible infrastructure is static. It can\u2019t change. Flexible infrastructure on the other hand, is infrastructure that can adapt to low probability, high impact events<\/strong> like a pandemic\u00a0either by adapting to the change in demand or by providing alternative use<\/strong> case options.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Imagine an airport terminal the shape of your hand, with one hallway leading to five different corridors. Each of these corridors could have 4 or 5 air bridges attached. In this design, when you no longer need 80% of your terminal capacity (like right now), you can close 80% of the space, saving on heat, electricity and other services needed to maintain the building.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this example, designing flexibility into the airport terminal <\/a>from the beginning allows it to maintain its value proposition. This isn\u2019t the perfect terminal design by any stretch of the imagination, but an exercise to get us thinking about how flexible infrastructure can help us adapt in moments like the one we\u2019re living now. As passenger throughput drops, operation expenditure (opex) should be able to match it.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Flexible<\/p>\n

Think of your house. When you walk in you switch on the hallway light. As you leave the hallway you switch that light\u00a0off, and\u00a0switch the living room light on. You decide to cook\u00a0something\u00a0so you turn the oven on to heat up. You cook your food, turn the oven off and turn the TV on. It\u2019s\u00a0cold so you close the door and turn your heating on for that one room. This is flexibility. The inflexible house turns your lights, TV,\u00a0oven\u00a0and heating on all at the same time, whether you need them or not. The operational costs of your house have now skyrocketed.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Using data to design flexibility<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

There are different degrees of flexibility<\/strong> that you can design into your infrastructure. And it\u2019s not just the shape of the building, but the services as well. In the airport example, that could be the retail area or baggage system. For a toll road, that could be giving extra space to specific vehicles at certain times of the day. An extra lane for public transport in the morning, more space for commercial vehicles during the day, for example.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When designing flexibility into infrastructure though, you\u00a0have to\u00a0be aware of the needs of the local population. Certain populations have certain needs. There are cultural differences and habits even within different regions of the same country.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"digital\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The digital twin can also be much more visual; a 3D space that allows you to judge the look and feel of a piece of infrastructure. The 3D digital twins allow you to share designs with local communities, which gives them the chance to provide you with invaluable feedback. This feedback can then be input into the digital twin,\u00a0analyzed\u00a0and perfected.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to balance everything<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Flexible infrastructure is infrastructure that can adapt to\u00a0change,\u00a0and\u00a0be more\u00a0profitable<\/strong>\u00a0over time. It\u2019s infrastructure where flexibility has been designed into the fabric from the beginning. But the reality is that 100% flexibility isn\u2019t possible. The perfect toll road doesn\u2019t exist. User\u00a0behaviors\u00a0dictate what a perfect piece of infrastructure is, and user\u00a0behaviors\u00a0vary throughout the world.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But understanding user\u00a0behavior\u00a0through the use of\u00a0digital twins and customer feedback allows you to strike a balance between\u00a0opex, capital expenditure and flexibility, thus creating the most flexible infrastructure for that time and place.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Flexible infrastructure\u00a0as a principle\u00a0allows us to make a more sustainable\u00a0future for\u00a0infrastructure.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

An article by Darren Anderson<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the pandemic hit, most international airports were faced with a similar problem: Their big, spacious terminals were suddenly empty. As passengers trickled through the tiled hallways, air conditioning units kept them cool while cleaners cleaned around them.\u00a0 From a passenger experience point of view, not much had changed. Maybe the duty free was closed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":41007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"nivel-1":[4660],"nivel-2":[4712,4743,5371],"nivel-3":[],"nivel-4":[],"nivel-5":[],"topic":[7297,7298,7295],"coauthors":[6607],"class_list":["post-41015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","post_format-post-format-image","nivel-1-airports","nivel-2-energy-efficiency","nivel-2-infrastructures","nivel-2-sustainability","topic-energy","topic-sustainability-and-well-being","topic-transportation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat is flexible infrastructure? - Ferrovial's blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Flexible infrastructure is infrastructure that can adapt to low probability, high impact events like a pandemic\u00a0either by adapting to the change\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/en\/2021\/09\/what-is-flexible-infrastructure\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What is flexible infrastructure? - Ferrovial's blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Flexible infrastructure is infrastructure that can adapt to low probability, high impact events like a pandemic\u00a0either by adapting to the change\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/en\/2021\/09\/what-is-flexible-infrastructure\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Ferrovial\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ferrovial\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-09-17T06:30:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-12T10:55:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.ferrovial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/09\/24093943\/infraestructuras-flexibles-e1631782313985.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ferrovial_es\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ferrovial_es\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Darren Anderson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What is flexible infrastructure? - Ferrovial's blog","description":"Flexible infrastructure is infrastructure that can adapt to low probability, high impact events like a pandemic\u00a0either by adapting to the change","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/en\/2021\/09\/what-is-flexible-infrastructure\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What is flexible infrastructure? - Ferrovial's blog","og_description":"Flexible infrastructure is infrastructure that can adapt to low probability, high impact events like a pandemic\u00a0either by adapting to the change","og_url":"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/en\/2021\/09\/what-is-flexible-infrastructure\/","og_site_name":"Ferrovial","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ferrovial","article_published_time":"2021-09-17T06:30:26+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-12-12T10:55:05+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":432,"url":"https:\/\/static.ferrovial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/09\/24093943\/infraestructuras-flexibles-e1631782313985.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ferrovial_es","twitter_site":"@ferrovial_es","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Darren Anderson","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/en\/2021\/09\/what-is-flexible-infrastructure\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/en\/2021\/09\/what-is-flexible-infrastructure\/"},"headline":"What is flexible infrastructure? 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To help design flexibility into infrastructure, we use something called a digital twin<\/a>. The digital twin<\/strong> can be a dataset you\u2019ve collected that contains information on the type of vehicle at a specific time of day. You can then use this data to simulate, among other things, what would happen on the highway if you turned an\u00a0all purpose\u00a0lane into a high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n