Despite the many technological advances made to vehicles, mobile devices, and cars, we see little change to asphalt roads. There are many things we can do to roads that can help innovate and improve the driving experience, particularly when it comes to road safety.In this post, we are going to take a look at that and four other technologies that you will see in the roads of the future
1. Glow In The Dark
Rather than spend a large budget on road lighting or other lighting options that span across thousands of miles of roads, the idea to use glow in the dark road markings is a better, more adoptable alternative. Such markings are already made available on the road in the N329 highway in Oss, Netherland.
The markings are made using paint that contains photo-luminising powder that “charges up” during the day. These green glow markings stretch for 500 m long and will glow for up to 8 hours every night, transforming your driving experience Tron-like.
2. Interactive Light
Aside from glow in the dark paint, there is also the idea to use motion-sensor lights. Interactive Light works in this sense: when a car approaches a particular stretch of a road, the motion sensors will light up only that section of the road. The lights will grow brighter as the car comes closer and will slowly dim away as it passes.INTERACTIVE LIGHT
Interactive Light is perfect for highways that are less-travelled or not always packed with cars. You can’ afford to play dice with the safety of road users, for the sake of saving a penny or two, and Interactive Lights help kill two birds with one stone, providing night visibility as and when required.Interactive Light
3. Wind-Powered Lights
Unlike interactive lights, wind-powered lights will power up itself using pinwheels to generate electricity. It works by harnessing wind drafts from passing cars into electric. The electricity will use to light up the lights on the pinwheels, basically lighting up the road path.Since it requires wind to power up, these wind-powered lights will only light up as cars pass by the area. For this to work, these pinwheel generators will be set up along the car’s path at the roadside, to continuously light up paths as cars drive through.
4. Electric Priority Lane
Another interesting idea by the same studio is the Electric Priority Lane where electric vehicles (EV) user can charge up their vehicle on the go. And they can do this just by driving on the right lane. The Induction Priority Lane will have embedded magnetic fields that can charge the vehicle while it is on the go. This is especially useful in countries like Netherland, where there there are a lot of EVs on the road.This will ensure that electric cars do not require to look for charging stations, and can even keep their cars charged on long journeys.Electric Priority Lane