A conversation with Richard Neumann, Senior Manager Communications and Events, SWARCO Group, Austria 

Richard Neumann has a philological academic background from universities in Germany, France, and Italy. First work experiences as Country Representative Italy and as a Technical Author. For the past 31 years, he has been working at the SWARCO headquarters in Austria in various management positions with focus on marketing and communications, exhibitions and events. 

Photo credit: SWARCO AG

Every year, some 1.25 million people lose their lives on the roads of our planet, the equivalent of a city the size of the Brussels metropolitan region wiped out annually. Traffic volumes keep climbing, emissions keep rising and the toll stays stubbornly high.  

In this interview, we sit down with Richard Neumann to learn how SWARCO, a leading manufacturer and supplier of road marking systems and intelligent transport systems, work to make the roads we already have safer, cleaner and smarter. He sums up SWARCO’s purpose plainly: to improve quality of life by making the travel experience safer, quicker, more convenient and environmentally sound. 

Behind that sentence sits a simple belief that human beings belong at the centre of the work, accompanied on their daily journeys from home to destination and given clear orientation in every kind of weather and light.

What sets the model apart is a way of seeing. SWARCO treats mobility infrastructure as one integrated ecosystem rather than a shelf of isolated products, combining roadside hardware, traffic management software, data, services and lifecycle support into solutions that can grow over time. Its urban mobility platform is modular and scalable, serving a town of 10,000 as readily as a city of a million and it can absorb legacy systems while staying open to future add-ons and third-party integrations.

Cities rarely start from a blank page, Richard notes, so they need solutions that respect existing investments while enabling modernisation. Add local teams that stay close to customers, backed by international technology know-how and the aim becomes helping authorities move from reactive traffic management towards more predictive and efficient operations. 

Ask about the single biggest obstacle and the answer is procurement. Road markings and traffic systems are still too often chosen on lowest price alone, while sustainability, life cycle impact, total cost of ownership and long-term operational value go unweighted. Correcting that, SWARCO argues, is the greatest opportunity of the next five years, alongside pairing proven infrastructure with connected technologies, data and Artificial Intelligence to optimise traffic flow, cut congestion and emissions and anticipate incidents before they escalate. 

The proof is already on the ground, and nowhere more visibly than in Qatar. In 2019 ASHGHAL, the country’s Public Works Authority, awarded SWARCO a six-year, first-of-a-kind contract to deliver a nationwide intelligent traffic management strategy. The resulting platform, running at the National Road Assets Management Center, monitors and controls more than 20,000 pieces of equipment, from CCTV and variable message signs to tunnel management and automated incident detection, with traffic forecasting and rapid, automated incident response built in. Its sternest test came during the FIFA World Cup in 2022, when Doha had to move an extra 50,000 to 100,000 people between stadiums each day. Over the 28 days of the tournament the software handled almost 2,800 traffic-related events, displayed 2,400 different messages and executed 13 lane closure response plans on the motorways. The network held and the journeys kept flowing.

Photo credit: Fauzan Fitria via Shutterstock.com 

Looking ahead, SWARCO expects the technology to keep shifting from reactive to predictive, with reflective glass beads engineered to make roads readable for human beings and machines alike, and digital twins turning live data into foresight. It is a future the company believes can only be built collaboratively, connecting every player in the mobility ecosystem around a shared goal of safer, more sustainable movement. 

That is the conversation it intends to continue in Geneva. A long-standing IRF member, SWARCO is drawn to the 2026 congress motto, “The Road Ahead: Trust, Delivery and Innovation,” and comes both to listen and to offer. As a sponsor and exhibitor, it will showcase its glass beads and their performance over time across different binder materials, and will unveil a digital twin of the host city itself, developed with a young Swiss start-up.  

Modern traffic management has grown complex enough to slow its own deployment, Richard observes, and the decisions that unlock it, how systems are specified and whether long-term value is scored at all, are made by exactly the policymakers, road authorities and operators the IRF convenes. 

SWARCO is generously supporting the IRF 2026 Annual Conference, taking place in Geneva from 16 to 18 November 2026. Learn more about the conference at https://irfofficial.org/irf-2026-annual-conference. 

The Full Interview 

Tell us about your organisation — what you do, where you operate and what sets you apart? 

The story of SWARCO started in 1969 when Tyrolean entrepreneur Manfred Swarovski built his first factory to produce reflective glass beads in Lower Austria. 57 years later, the SWARCO Group has evolved into the leading manufacturer and supplier of road marking systems and intelligent transport systems. The Austrian traffic technology corporation produces and provides a large range of products, systems, services, and turnkey solutions for road marking, urban and interurban traffic management, parking, and public transport. High-performance glass beads to pave the way for automated driving, energy-saving LED traffic lights and variable message signs, the full range of road marking materials and services, cooperative systems, infrastructure-to-vehicle communication, AI-supported traffic control, and integrated software solutions for the Livable City complement the group’s future-oriented portfolio. 6000 colleagues in 27 countries look after more than 5000 business partners on all continents. Group revenues in 2025 summed up to almost 1.3 billion euros. 

 

How has your organisation’s mission evolved over the years, and what does it look like today? 

The essence of our mission has been stable over decades, just the wordings of claims and leading ideas have evolved with the growth and diversification of our group. SWARCO’s mission is to save lives on the roads, making traffic more fluid and less environmentally harmful, and making better use of the existing road infrastructure with intelligent traffic management. Since 2019 our leading idea reads: “We improve quality of life by making the travel experience safer, quicker, more convenient, and environmentally sound.” Improving quality of life implies that human beings are at the centre of our everyday work. We accompany the road users and travellers on their daily journeys, from home to destination, provide orientation and clear information under all kinds of weather and lighting conditions, give them a safer travel environment, and help make mobility as seamless as possible over the different modes of transport. 

 

What is the single biggest challenge in the transportation sector today, and why does it matter? 

The death toll on the roads of our planet is still much too high. Some 1.25 million people lose their lives on the roads every year. To give you a comparison – that is the number of inhabitants of a city like the Brussels metropolitan region wiped out every year! In the light of ever-growing traffic volumes and related emissions caused by vehicles we must not tire to improve road safety and the quality of life for all on all continents. Good orientation through well-defined roads with excellent road markings, clear signalling and improved traffic flow, better management of traffic corridors with signalized intersections – also with the support of Artificial Intelligence – and last but not least education of the road users about the rules to respect and education of the traffic authorities about the benefits that can be expected from the increased deployment of intelligent transportation systems. All this matters to us because we take our corporate social responsibility seriously to help make planet Earth a better place.   

 

Where do you see the greatest opportunity for progress in the next five years? 

We see the greatest opportunity for our future in prioritising sustainable, intelligent, and future-ready solutions in public tenders for road markings and traffic management systems. Selection should look beyond the lowest price and give stronger weight to sustainability, life cycle impact, total cost of ownership, and long-term operational value. 

Furthermore, progress will increasingly come from combining proven infrastructure with connected technologies, data, and Artificial Intelligence. This can help authorities optimise traffic flow, reduce congestion and emissions, anticipate incidents, support operators, and make better use of existing road infrastructure. 

 

Can you point to a project or deployment that you’re particularly proud of and why? 

One of our flagship references is Qatar with its 3.2 million inhabitants. In 2019, ASHGHAL, the Public Works Authority awarded SWARCO with a 6-year, ambitious and first-of-a-kind project to implement a country-wide intelligent traffic management strategy that enables traffic operators to focus on road network performance achieving journey time reliability, rapid incident detection and automated response, and increased road safety. 

Our software solution, running at the National Road Assets Management Center, is a comprehensive future-proof ITS platform supporting and integrating all existing and future ITS implementations to monitor and control more than 20,000 existing and future ITS equipment such as CCTV, VMS, RWIS, ATD, WiM, Overheight Detection, LPR and enable traffic forecasting, SCATS traffic control, SCADA tunnel management, Automated Incident Detection, and Business Systems Integration.   

Our software solution has proven its performance also under exceptional conditions, such as big events like the FIFA World Cup in 2022, when the country had to manage an extra 50,000 to 100,000 people moving around Doha between the stadiums, putting huge pressure on local infrastructure. During the 28 days of the event, our software solution was put under considerable stress by successfully handling almost 2,800 traffic related events, 2,400 different messages displayed by the VMS, and 13 lane closure incident response plans on the motorways. 

 

How does your approach differ from conventional solutions in the market? 

Our approach differs from conventional solutions because we look at mobility infrastructure as an integrated ecosystem, not as a collection of isolated products. In our projects, we take a holistic view of our customers’ needs, combining roadside infrastructure, traffic management software, data, services, and lifecycle support into solutions that can evolve over time. 

Our urban mobility management platform is modular and scalable to the size and requirements of a city, whether it has 10,000 or 1 million inhabitants. It can integrate legacy systems, connect different mobility domains, and remain flexible and open for future adaptations, third-party integrations and add-ons. This is important because cities rarely start from a blank page; they need solutions that respect existing investments while enabling modernisation. 

A further differentiator is our combination of local presence and international technology know-how. We are close to customers through our local teams, while also bringing global experience, standardised technologies and proven solutions from many markets.

Finally, we increasingly combine proven infrastructure with new features to help customers move from reactive traffic management to more predictive and efficient mobility operations. Our goal is not technology for its own sake, but solutions that improve safety, traffic flow, sustainability, and long-term value for public authorities and road users. 

 

What are you most looking forward to at the IRF 2026 Annual Conference? 

As a long-standing IRF member we look forward to the networking opportunities with international industry professionals who embrace the congress motto “The Road Ahead: Trust, Delivery and Innovation”. Modern traffic management solutions have become quite complex, which sometimes slows down their deployment. We come to Geneva for opinion exchange, to deep dive into the real challenges of cities and municipalities, and to offer solutions from our portfolio. As an exhibitor we will highlight our reflective glass beads and their system performance over time in various types of binder materials and their role in making roads readable for human beings and machines alike. In addition, we will showcase a digital twin solution for the host city of Geneva, developed in cooperation with a young start-up based in Switzerland.  

 

What message do you most want delegates to take away from your participation? 

We want to convey to the delegates that SWARCO remains the trusted choice for  future-ready mobility solutions – committed to long-term growth. We have entered an era of exciting changes where global trends like urbanization, digitalization, automation, sustainability, along with the technological evolutions, are creating challenging opportunities. In this dynamic world, the future can only be created collaboratively. That is why we try to connect all players of our business ecosystem within SWARCO’s efforts to create innovations in road safety and traffic management that connect people and goods and ultimately make our planet a better place. 

 

References & Credits 

Website: www.swarco.com;
Website: www.swarco-its.com 
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/swarco
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/swarco-its