Genoa: wireless sensors to monitor the condition of viaducts are now in use

Never again should anything like what happened at the Morandi viaduct occur. Genoa City Council has chosen a Milan-based company – a former start-up founded by the Politecnico – to develop the first phase of a monitoring system for the city’s strategic infrastructure. The aim, of course, is to safeguard the safety of citizens and prevent dangerous situations from arising on bridges within the municipal area, whilst the memory of the collapse of the Polcevera viaduct – which claimed 43 lives on 14 August 2018 – remains, sadly, all too vivid.

Displaid – the name of the company selected by the City Council – has completed the installation of a wireless sensor system to monitor three pieces of city infrastructure: the Castagna viaduct on Corso Europa, the bridge on Via De Sanctis in Genoa’s Pra’ district, and the viaduct on Via Vallecrosia in Genoa’s Voltri district. The solution chosen, as explained by the company’s senior management, allows for ‘integrated management of the entire process: from the installation of the sensors, through to the collection and analysis of data, right up to the continuous monitoring of the infrastructure’s condition via a dedicated platform’.

Founded in 2023 by Lorenzo Benedetti, Francesco Morgan Bono, Luca Radicioni and Giancarlo Donizzelli, PhD students at the Politecnico di Milano, Displaid specialises in predictive monitoring of viaducts and bridges, thanks to a solution that utilises IoT technology and artificial intelligence, enabling the entire network to be monitored and its condition assessed. The solution developed by the company has already been trialled by Ferrovienord, the ASTM Group and public authorities such as the Metropolitan City of Florence and the Municipality of Narni.

This project, explains the Mayor of Genoa, Silvia Salis, is only the first step in what will need to be a much broader process. “It is clear,” she emphasised, “that, with the resources available to the City Council, we are only able to undertake a few urgent measures. To date, 673 bridges and bridge decks have been surveyed. We have already requested, on several occasions, the opportunity to draw on the funds earmarked for post-Morandi collapse relief, by revising the agreements. We have finalised agreements with the Port Authority for funding of around 4 million, whilst we are awaiting further news from the Liguria Regional Government, which, during a technical meeting at the Prefecture, had indicated its willingness to provide 5 million in funding.”

Moreover, as the Councillor for Public Works, Massimo Ferrante, states, “this initiative forms part of a wider framework of measures taken in compliance with the current Bridge Guidelines, aimed at establishing an appropriate management system for the city’s road infrastructure. Knowledge of and management of this infrastructure are fundamental to ensuring the efficiency of the road network and the safety of citizens and road users’.