Greece’s first AI-driven, full-motorway traffic management deployment - Lanternn by Valerann™ on the Ionia Odos
Following our 2024 distinction in the Road Safety category for the project “AI Cameras on Interchanges & Geolocation,” Nea Odos took the next step in digital innovation. The company became the first motorway operator in Greece to deploy an advanced data-fusion AI platform across its motorway assets, further enhancing road safety.
This initiative reflects Nea Odos’ strategic commitment to leading the digital transformation of motorway operations in Greece and across Southeast Europe. In partnership with Valerann, a global leader in AI-driven road operations, Nea Odos deployed the Lanternn by Valerann™ platform across the full 196 km corridor of the Ionia Odos (A5)—a strategic axis connecting Antirrio to Ioannina, traversing Epirus, Western Greece and the Peloponnese, and forming part of the European E65 route.
The deployment marks a step-change in motorway operations. Instead of processing fragmented data streams, control-room operators now rely on a unified, real-time operational picture that integrates CCTV, navigation applications, weather data and roadside sensors. The platform automatically detects incidents, continuously profiles risk along the corridor, and prioritizes only high-value, verified alerts—transforming tens of thousands of daily data points into actionable intelligence.
The Ionia Odos deployment builds on a rigorous, evidence-led pilot conducted by Nea Odos and Valerann on a 40 km section of the A1 motorway between Malakasa and Thiva — one of Greece’s busiest corridors.
The results significantly exceeded existing operational benchmarks:
- 12 accident notifications before any other authority.
- 45% of incidents detected earlier, with an average lead time of more than 15 minutes ahead of legacy systems.
- A 97.5% reduction in operational noise, condensing approximately 50,000 daily data points into 23 actionable alerts.
These results provided Nea Odos the confidence to scale from a targeted pilot into a full-network commercial deployment on its flagship concession. The Ionia Odos rollout integrates Lanternn directly with the motorway’s Traffic Management Centres, giving operators unified situational awareness, automated incident detection and continuous risk profiling along every kilometre of the motorway.
For Nea Odos and the wider GEK TERNA Group motorway concessions portfolio, this deployment establishes a new operating standard. Earlier and more reliable detection enables faster response and clearance ,reducing the likelihood of secondary incidents . For the millions of users who travel the Ionia Odos each year — connecting Western Greece with the rest of the country, and serving the ports of Patras, Astakos and Igoumenitsa — the result is a safer, more reliable journey supported by intelligence that operates continuously in the background.
The A1 and A5 deployments represent the first end-to-end, AI-enabled motorway traffic management ecosystem in Greece—and one of the few fully scaled implementations in Europe, setting a new benchmark for AI-driven motorway operations.
Sustainability
The project directly contributes to two United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:
SDG 3 – Good Health and Well-being - By significantly enhancing road safety through earlier incident detection and faster response times, the system reduces both the likelihood and severity of secondary accidents.
SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure - By leveraging advanced AI and data-fusion technologies, the platform optimizes motorway operations, enabling more efficient use of resources and infrastructure.
Additionally, by improving traffic flow and reducing congestion-related delays, the system contributes to lower fuel consumption and reduced emissions.
Replicability
The Ionia Odos deployment is intentionally designed to be repeatable — by Nea Odos on its other assets, by other GEK TERNA Group concessions, and by motorway operators internationally.
Lanternn by Valerann™ is a cloud-based, fully scalable platform that is hardware- and software-agnostic. It does not depend on any single sensor type, vendor or roadside system, and is built to ingest and fuse data from whatever sources an operator already has in place — CCTV, navigation applications, weather feeds, roadside sensors and third-party ITS systems. This means existing investment in field infrastructure is preserved rather than replaced, lowering both the cost and the risk of adoption.
Delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS), the platform enables fast, non-disruptive and low-friction deployment.
The pathway followed on the Nea Odos network — a focused pilot on a 40 km stretch of the A1, followed by a full 196 km commercial rollout on the Ionia Odos — is a model that can be replicated by any concessionaire: prove value on a representative section, then scale across the network. The Ionia Odos rollout demonstrates that this scaling step is not only feasible, but operationally sound.
Innovation
The innovation lies in transitioning motorway operations from siloed monitoring by multiple control centres to unified, data-driven operational model across an entire 196 km corridor — a first for Greece.
Traditionally, control-room operators work across separate streams: CCTV walls, navigation alerts, weather feeds, roadside sensor outputs. Each tells part of the story; none tells the whole. The AI platform fuses these streams in real time and applies AI and computer-vision algorithms to produce a single, continuously updated operational picture, with automatic incident detection and continuous risk profiling along every kilometre.
The standout results are in how the platform handles true detections versus noise. During the A1 pilot, approximately 50,000 daily data points were condensed into 23 actionable alerts — a 97.5% reduction in operational noise, while simultaneously increasing incident detection with an average lead time of more than 15 minutes.
This reframes the operator’s role: instead of filtering data, they act on intelligence. For Nea Odos, applying this approach across the full length of the Ionia Odos sets a new technical and operational benchmark for motorway management in Greece and the wider region.
Impact
The Ionia Odos is the first motorway in Greece to be operated end-to-end with AI-driven, data-fusion traffic management. The impact is measurable, immediate, and at scale.
- Operational impact, evidenced in the A1 pilot
- 12 accident notifications before any other authority.
- 45% of incidents detected earlier, with an average lead time of more than 15 minutes ahead of legacy systems.
- A 97.5% reduction in operational noise, condensing approximately 50,000 daily data points into 23 actionable alerts.
Collectively, these outcomes demonstrate a scalable and future-ready approach to motorway operations.
Safety impact for road users
Earlier detection means faster response and clearance, and a shorter window in which secondary incidents — often more serious than the original event — can occur. Across a 196 km corridor serving Epirus, Western Greece and the Peloponnese, and connecting to the ports of Patras, Astakos and Igoumenitsa, this translates into a meaningfully safer journey for every user.
Strategic impact
The deployment establishes a new operating standard for Nea Odos, the GEK TERNA Group motorway portfolio, and the Greek motorway sector — and a reference model for concessionaires across southeastern Europe.