Each year, vehicles are getting smarter. They are now designed to generate power from braking, adapt to the speed of traffic, and even park themselves. However, our roads have basically stayed the same since we turned dirt and gravel into asphalt.
That’s changing however. Designers, inventors, and engineers are working to make highways more visible, more useful and less expensive. These roads are known as smart highways.
Smart highways are sustainable and interactive highways of the future designed by Heijmans Infrastructure and Daan Roosegaarde. The goal of intelligent highways is to make them interact better with traffic situation using energy, light and information. Some features of smart highways are listed below.
Glow-n-the-Dark Road Lines
During the day, glowing lines are charged so they can glow up to eight hours at night. The first smart road has already been designed. The paint used for the markings has a photo-luminescent powder in it that charges in daylight. These green glowing lines stretch for 500 miles long.
Temperature Reactive Paint
Another paint developed by Roosegaarde for intelligent highways is a transparent paint that turns blue when temperatures get below 32 degrees F to warn drivers that the highway could be icy.
Reactive Road Lighting
Reactive road lighting is designed to light up roads that have limited traffic only when needed through the use of proximity sensors that turn on and off with oncoming vehicles. To keep a road with little traffic constantly lit would cost significantly in energy and money.
Solar Roadways
The idea here is to install solar panels, microprocessors and LEDs on glass roads engineered to help vehicles stop safely regardless of the speed they are driving. The glass is renewable, eco-friendly and stronger than steel. Solar roadways can even melt snow in the wintertime and harnesses the power of solar energy for its electrical needs.
Wind-Powered Lights
Wind-powered lights generate electricity through pinwheels to power up. It harnesses wind drafts from passing vehicles and turns it into electric which is used to light the lights up that are on the pinwheels which lights the road path. The lights only come on when vehicles pass by that section. To continuously light up road paths, the pinwheels are set at the roadside along the vehicle’s path.
Not only do intelligent highways make roads safer to travel on, they are also eco-friendly and energy efficient giving drivers a whole new experience of driving.
While smart highways are poised to make our roads safer, be sure that you’re covered with adequate auto insurance. To compare auto insurance, complete our online quote form to receive multiple car insurance quotes.
