Thursday, May 2, 2013

The Netherlands are in the process of building "Smart Highways" which will have glow in the dark lane markings, symbols that illuminate the road when adverse conditions appear and an electric priority lane which will charge electric cars as they drive - set to be ready for service mid 2013

Did you know that the Netherlands are in the process of building “Smart Highways” which will have glow in the dark lane markings, symbols that illuminate the road when adverse conditions appear and an electric priority lane which will charge electric cars as they drive – set to be ready for service mid 2013.


 


A smart-road design that features glow-in-the-dark tarmac and illuminated weather indicators will be installed in the Netherlands from mid-2013.


 


“One day I was sitting in my car in the Netherlands, and I was amazed by these roads we spend millions on but no one seems to care what they look like and how they behave,” the designer behind the concept, Daan Roosegaarde, told Wired.co.uk. “I started imagining this Route 66 of the future where technology jumps out of the computer screen and becomes part of us.”


 


The Smart Highway by Studio Roosegaarde and infrastructure management group Heijmans won Best Future Concept at the Dutch Design Awards, and has already gone beyond pure concept. The studio has developed a photo-luminising powder that will replace road markings — it charges up in sunlight, giving it up to 10 hours of glow-in-the-dark time come nightfall. “It’s like the glow in the dark paint you and I had when we were children,” designer Roosegaarde explained, “but we teamed up with a paint manufacturer and pushed the development. Now, it’s almost radioactive”.


 


Special paint will also be used to paint markers like snowflakes across the road’s surface — when temperatures fall to a certain point, these images will become visible, indicating that the surface will likely be slippery. Roosegaarde says this technology has been around for years, on things like baby food — the studio has just upscaled it.


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The Netherlands are in the process of building "Smart Highways" which will have glow in the dark lane markings, symbols that illuminate the road when adverse conditions appear and an electric priority lane which will charge electric cars as they drive - set to be ready for service mid 2013

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