Go north of Oss on the N329 in Twilight and shine in the dark. These green line-made with photoluminescence color, which absorb light during the day and radiate at night, are connected by temperature-sensitive markings in the form of ice crystals that only occur under freezing conditions, as well as the lanes that can be charged for loading electric cars and street sensors that can calculate the drivers' navigation apps.
The Dutch Smart Highway is a growing number of road projects worldwide worldwide that revolutionize our trips. In Gumi City, South Korea, a 24 -km section of the motorway can charge the “Electric Avenue” with the nickname of the Electric Avenue wirelessly temporary electric buses. Detroit, Michigan, won a contract for the first street of the United States, which acts as a wireless EV charging system. The Colorado sensor networks offer drivers in real-time traffic and weather data and make travel through the Rocky Mountains safer.
Intelligent highways are streets that implement technology to create a safer, smoother and more sustainable driving experience. The real -time monitoring is guided by artificial intelligence and connected via the Internet of Things. Smart highways are an intelligent ecosystem that “think, communicate and actively manage the transport.
The history of the intelligent motorways
The vision was first played at the World Mass in New York in 1939, where a General Motors exhibited imaginary cars, which is embedded in the streets in the streets are embedded at optimal speeds. The concept gained dynamics in the nineties when the US Congress passed a legislation that provided funds for the development of technology for driverless cars and automated highways.
Traffic sensors, control centers and variable news signs were taken over in more and more places in the 2000s, and in 2006 one of the world's first real intelligent highways was introduced on the M42 near Birmingham in Great Britain. Here, variable speed limits and the use of the hard shoulder as an additional lane during heavy traffic led to reduced travel times and significantly fewer accidents.
The computer performance has improved since then and the technology has become cheaper. The revolutionary streets in Gumi and OSS were both opened in 2013.
Building an intelligent highway
The construction requires numerous materials and technologies. Road surfaces must be durable enough to absorb embedded electronics (such as LEDs LEDs, communication nodes or inductive EV coils or loading plates). Traditional concrete or asphalt is still used, but sometimes recycled plastic are contained as binders to increase strength, or specialized asphalt and concrete mixtures are used for the additional handle and resistance.
Technology tubes that are installed at intervals along the Highway House sensors, computer systems and other technologies. CCTV cameras monitor the number and speed of vehicles as well as the weather and road surface conditions. Sustainable energy characteristics such as wind turbines on lamp posts or solar collectors in noise barriers can also be integrated into smart highway designs.
The establishment of 5G or other high-speed communication networks is of crucial importance for real-time data exchange. The data collected by Smart Highways are processed by AI to enable the detection of dangers and traffic optimization in real time and to facilitate the forecast. Digital signs and adaptive traffic lights then give the decisions of AI algorithms to drivers – a new speed limit, possibly a blocking or warning message.
Some construction plans include modularly prefabricated kits, so that the complicated work can be made when embedding sensors in roads in advance, instead of on the construction site.
Advantages and challenges
Intelligent highways prevent accidents and minimize their effects when they occur – through immediate warnings to drivers, autonomous vehicles or the emergency services as well as by adapting speed limits or by redirecting traffic. Sensors can recognize potholes, icy spots and deer and learn the difference between a car tire and a paper bag that faster than a human can.
Active traffic management systems reduce the traffic jams for commuters, while smoother trips cause drivers to consume less fuel. Some intelligent highways have other environmentally friendly additions, such as solar collectors with signs or sensors. The optimization of the existing road capacity means that the smart highways movement bolster for automation and electric vehicles must receive fewer new roads -to maintain green spaces.
The technology that offers real-time updates can also monitor the condition of our streets, proactively tackle the potholes or the effort of bridges before becoming a problem. Traffic data can also help the maintenance of crews plan road work in the least disturbing manner.
However, there are risks. Last but not least, data surveys and data protection concerns are: The same data that helps and planners help can be taken into account by commercial companies (such as McDonald's and Starbucks) or law enforcement authorities. Intelligent highways depend on connectivity, which also makes it susceptible to cyber attacks. The public buy-in depends on the certainty that data is securely saved, protected, encrypted, anonymized and strict GDPR data protection rules subject to monitoring or exploitation. Laws and regulations must keep up with technological advances, while transport agencies need IT security skills at the elite level.
Intelligent highways are not cheap. In addition to the hardware (sensors, cameras, etc.), there are data processing centers, cloud services and workers to maintain them all. It is often controversial to determine how the legislation – between government investments, private partners, taxpayers and toll frames can be divided. Another potential headache is that technology systems that were developed by various car manufacturers and urban planners are compatible.
The future of intelligent highways
The development of the highway depends on a future in which most new cars on the market have built-in V2X communication units-with which it enables cars to communicate with their surroundings. This nods on a predominantly autonomous future: We will see cars and trucks that deal with the smart highways, with the street infrastructure mainly designed for autonomous traffic.
This is already done in China, while the freight corridors open in Michigan, Texas and Georgia to support autonomous trucks.
Intelligent highways will depend on the constantly developed technology. This includes road networks that were made possible by 6g and were improved by ki- and virtual simulations as well as concrete streets with embedded sensors and wireless connectivity, which essentially transform the highway into a huge computer. Further highways will probably follow South Korea's leadership when embedding charging baths or conductive rails in the road surface to load electric vehicles when driving. And some surfaces can even contain self -healing materials (special polymers or bacterial mixtures) that can automatically seal cracks on the street.
In this future, the highways themselves could also become positive or even energy. While an experiment on the streets of the solar panel in Normandy, France (too expensive; the weight of the tractors is unable to not be able to withstand the weight of the tractors), other innovations are outdoors – such as small wind turbines that grasp the gusts of temporary vehicles or even piezoelectric crystals, which could generate electricity from the pressure of the vehicle.
Ultimately, smart highways will work as part of a more holistic Smart City system. In the event of heavy overload, you can communicate with city representatives, public transit systems or even carpools or logistics companies.
Although the complications as KI-, V2X communication and materials science continue to progress, we will continue to observe a paradigm shift in the functioning of our streets.
Photo credits: D.kvasnetskyy/Shutterstock