INROADS - INtelligent Renewable Optical ADvisory System (INROADS)
Overview
Background & policy context:
Road studs -- also known as cat’s eyes -- are used around the world to delineate (along with painted lines) road space throughretro-reflective spheres, which are illuminated by vehicle headlights. In recentyears, the use of LED lights within road studs has been developed. This has thesignificant advantage that the road studs are: more visible due to activelighting than is achievable through reflection alone, can use dynamic coloursand can be seen at angles that would not be reflected by headlights.
These properties make LED road studs useful for locations wherethere is an increased risk of accidents such as unlit country roads.
Objectives:
This project aims to develop Intelligent Road Studs (IRS) combining LED lighting, sensor systems and communication technologies. The IRS will integrate renewable energy technologies that will fully or partially power the devices, making them self contained. The principle identified renewable technologies are solar photovoltaic and piezoelectric, although other sources will be investigated. Powering the units using renewable energy will reduce carbon emissions and allow for their use on sections of highway with no readily available power source.
Methodology:
The integration of communication technology, and for certainapplications, sensors within the individual units will enable enhancedtraffic management and driver information and this will represent thesignificant step forward over existing systems, as the lights will beable to communicate with each other and with a central control.Intelligent Road Studs embedded across the highway will create a numberof new intelligent lighting applications that will enable the moreeffective operation of the highway network, improve safety, and reduceCO2 emissions by maximising the use of the existing asset and reducingthe need for additional road construction.
The safety of the systems and the optimum positioning of the lights will be assuredthrough human factors simulation, and assessed during a period ofvalidation testing, initially of the units, and subsequently through alive trial.
Development of appropriate devices will be based notonly on the extensive combined experience within the group, but alsothrough an advisory board comprised of road operators and experts, whowill also extend the geographic range of the consortium. The potentialfor prompt delivery to market is strengthened considerably by thepresence of Siemens, who have sales channels in over 20 countries.
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