Every road agency is buying cameras, analytics, traffic AI, asset systems. Each one alone. This guide gives the person writing the tender three questions to answer first, and a color for each answer.
How to use it
Before you write the tender, answer three questions. Each answer has a color. The worst color wins. Then write the tender for the color you want, not the color you got.
The three checks
What data goes in?
- Green
No person in it. Road geometry, asset condition, aggregated counts, weather.
- Orange
Personal data of the public. Camera video, licence plates, probe data, toll records. Masking does not change this.
- Red
Biometric, classified or critical data. Rules already pin it to a place.
Where does the data go, and who can read it?
- Green
Your own servers, or a data centre you control, and the provider cannot read the data.
- Orange
A provider under your own law or EU law, with a written transfer basis, an impact assessment and an exit clause.
- Red
A foreign-law provider that can read raw personal or critical data. Location of the data centre does not protect it.
What does the AI do?
- Green
It suggests, a person decides.
- Orange
It assists a safety or person-affecting decision, and a trained person can override it. High-risk in the EU from 2 December 2027.
- Red
It decides alone, with legal effect on a person or control of a safety function.
Three questions for your next tender
- 1
Where is my data stored and processed?
- 2
Can I take my data out, in a format another system can read, without paying extra?
- 3
Who else can read it today: another system, another agency, another country?
Whoever builds your system brings their law with them. Whoever funds it brings their contract. Read both before you sign.
Version 0.1, 19 September 2026. Prepared for the IRF ES7 session “AI and Digital Tools for Road Agencies”, Tbilisi, 1 October 2026. Offered as input to the work underway on an IRF Task Force on Road Data and AI Interoperability.
About the author
Mikayel Avagyan is Chief Product Officer and AI Architect at Tev Technologies, Armenia, an IRF member company. He has 20 years of operations experience in Armenia and Spain. Tev Technologies builds monitoring and AI software for infrastructure operators.
Corrections and cases from your agency: mikayel@tevtechnologies.com
tevtechnologies.comThis guide is not legal advice and was prepared without a lawyer’s review. The colors show where rules are likely to apply. Check your own country’s rules before you sign.