Transportation Corridors Can Do More – Colocating Utilities Unlocks the Full Value of Infrastructure

Across the United States, transportation corridors already host an enormous amount of critical infrastructure. Highways, rail lines, and other rights-of-way frequently often carry buried electric transmission, telecommunications fiber, water infrastructure, and pipelines. These shared corridors represent one of the most important – yet often overlooked – opportunities to strengthen the nation’s infrastructure systems.

A new report from the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure, When Infrastructure Does More: Leveraging Fiber to Enhance Data Center Growth and Resilience, explores how the concept of multi-use infrastructure corridors can deliver new value. The report highlights how fiber networks in these corridors can serve not only as communications infrastructure, but also as sensing systems capable of monitoring surrounding assets and improving infrastructure resilience. In effect, by colocating fiber with other utility lines and transportation networks, they can all be concurrently and continuously protected and provide real-time situational awareness to the operators and authorities for each facility.

Infrastructure Corridors Are Becoming Multi-System Platforms

Modern infrastructure rarely exists in isolation. Electric transmission lines often run alongside telecommunications routes, pipelines, and transportation systems. These colocated assets form what the report describes as a growing “data–energy triangle,” where power systems, fiber networks, and computing infrastructure are increasingly interdependent.

This convergence is accelerating for a simple reason: the demands of the digital economy. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data centers require enormous amounts of both electricity and high-capacity fiber connectivity. As these facilities expand across the country, the supporting infrastructure must expand alongside them.

Transportation rights-of-way provide a logical location for these systems. They already span long distances, connect urban and rural regions, and often have established access and permitting frameworks. When utilities share these corridors, the result is not simply cost savings – it can fundamentally reshape how infrastructure networks operate together.

Fiber Infrastructure Can Do More Than Carry Data

One of the most promising developments highlighted in the report is Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing (DFOS). This technology allows fiber optic cables to act as continuous sensors along their entire length.

Using subtle changes in light signals traveling through the fiber, DFOS systems can detect vibrations, temperature changes, strain, and other environmental conditions along a corridor. In practical terms, this means a fiber cable can monitor activity such as excavation near pipelines, structural stress on bridges, or movement along transportation routes.

In effect, a single fiber route can perform multiple roles simultaneously:

• Carry communications traffic
• Detect potential damage from excavation
• Monitor infrastructure conditions
• Improve situational awareness for corridor operators

This dual-use capability is particularly valuable in shared rights-of-way where multiple infrastructure systems run parallel to each other. This makes sense in transportation rights-of-way, because DFOS can monitor the transport infrastructure and the additional colocated utility lines.

Protecting Critical Infrastructure at Scale

The United States maintains an enormous underground infrastructure network – estimated to include roughly 50 million miles of pipes, cables, and wires.

Monitoring and protecting this network has always been a challenge. Conventional monitoring systems rely on discrete sensors, cameras, or inspection crews that cover limited areas. DFOS takes a fundamentally different approach by turning the entire fiber cable into a continuous sensing system.

This capability allows operators to detect potential threats – such as unauthorized excavation or structural strain – before they lead to outages or infrastructure damage. In sectors where reliability and safety are paramount, such as energy networks and data center interconnections, the ability to identify problems earlier can significantly reduce operational risks.

There are myriad private sector and public interests and applications. These are explored more fully in our report. Read here to learn more.

Infrastructure That Works Harder

The United States is entering a period of significant infrastructure expansion. New power generation, transmission lines, fiber networks, and data centers will shape the nation’s economic future for decades to come.

The key question is not simply where to build these systems, but how to build them smarter.

Transportation corridors offer a ready-made framework for this approach. By colocating utilities and integrating technologies that monitor and protect critical assets, infrastructure investments can deliver greater resilience, improved safety, and stronger economic returns.

When infrastructure corridors are designed to serve multiple purposes, the result is infrastructure that does more – and works harder – for the nation.

Written by Benjamin Dierker, Executive Director