Our cars are getting smarter every day–but can we say the same about our roads? Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde believes there is a wealth of untapped energy and potential right beneath our wheels. Winner in the prestigious INDEX: Award 2013 Community Category, Roosegaarde’s ‘Smart Highway’ concept modernizes European roadways into interactive experiences that pave the way towards environmental sustainability and greater public safety.
Designed in collaboration with Heijmans Infrastructure, a Dutch multinational development company, Smart Highway aims to retrofit highways with innovative technology that can visually communicate dangerous road conditions and traffic pattern disruptions, charge electric cars on the go, and even generate energy to power its own lighting. Using glow-in-the-dark paint treated with photo-luminizing powder, these roadway strips recharge by daylight and can illuminate roads for up to ten hours at night, reducing the need for auxiliary lighting.
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I don’t quite understand what this invention is about. Glow in the dark paints have been on the market for a while and have already been used in various technical fields. Using these kind of paints on regular roads will be quite expensive or at least more expensive then using efficient lights in a car.