Future Means of Transport and Roads Infrastructure

In UK petrol and diesel cars are set to be banned from the roads by 2040 and are going to be replaced by Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), facilitating the carbon neutral road based transport. Similarly the fleet of HGVs is going to be switched over to hydrogen power.

In future, wireless charging infrastructure could also be embedded in the road, providing induction charging for electric vehicles on the go.

The ability to charge electric vehicles while driving will also become a reality. Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed new technology and techniques to enable the wireless transmission of power from a stationary source to a mobile receiver. The system uses a specialised receiver that generates a burst of power only when a vehicle passes over a wireless transmitter. Early models suggest that installing charging coils in 10% of a roadway would extend the driving range of an electric vehicles from about 96 km to 480 km.

The Smart Highways is a concept to develop more dynamic highways. The aim is to make roads that are safer and more sustainable by using interactive lights, smart energy and road signs that adapt to specific traffic condition.

One idea is to use a photo-luminising powder for road markings that charges during the day to slowly emit a green glow at night.

The use of small wind turbines along the roadside could also provide an emission-free source of illumination. LED lights would be attached to small turbines placed at certain intervals to take advantage of wind generated by passing vehicles.

Another idea in development is to use temperature-sensitive paint to create giant snow flake-shaped warning signs on the roads to indicate icy condition.

Intelligent Pedestrian Crossings

The new system will use high-tech pedestrian signals with video cameras to detect pedestrian numbers at crossings and extends the green man light when large numbers of people are waiting to cross the roads.

Smart Fare Collection

Fare validation at the time of boarding a bus will be done by smart phone. The ultrasonic transmitter usually operates within two to three metres of the entrance of the vehicle, but can be easily calibrated to varying distances, which means no standing in line.

Energy from Footfall

A trial is underway to harness energy from the footfall of pedestrians. Pavegen’s energy tiles have been installed on part of a pavement outside a busy train station. These tiles harness and convert kinetic energy from the pedestrians into electricity that then powers parts of the station. 

Drone Delivery System

US company Matternet is designing a drone delivery network for regions, particularly in low-income countries, where a road network doesn’t exist or is unreliable. In such areas, light weight, autonomous drones could be the fastest and most cost-effective method for delivering food, medicine, and other necessities to isolated communities.

Metternet proposes a system of baste stations where drones could rapidly switch batteries or payloads with other drones and then continue through the network of base stations to their drop-off or collection point. According to Matternet, this cheaper and more environmentally friendly transport system could be a substitute for expensive investment in road infrastructure. 

Driverless Vehicles

Technology giant Google, has been working on driverless vehicle technology for a number of years and Google’s automated cars have now driven 700,000 miles around Mountain View in California.

Google’s self-driving vehicles have shown that they can recognise and respond to road works, level crossing, complex intersection and a variety of communications with cyclists. For example using laser imaging, the car can recognise a cyclist waving his hand, will expect the cyclist to move over and will not pass until it is safe to do so.

Volvo Self-Drive Convey

 Over the past few years, Volvo has been testing self-driven vehicle convey, where cars are wirelessly linked to each other and follow a lead vehicle controlled by a driver. In 2012, the first public test of such vehicles, a convey of self-driven cars comprising three cars and a truck, completed a 200km journey on a Spanish motorway. Using wireless communication, the vehicles in the platoon ‘mimicked’ the lead vehicle using autonomous control. Vehicle convoys can reduce congestion through more efficient use of road space and cut fuel consumption by up to 20%.

Synchronised Traffic Signals

Los Angles, USA, is the first major city in the world to fully synchronise all its traffic signals. The Automatic Traffic Surveillance and Control system is one of the world’s most comprehensive traffic systems for alleviating traffic. The system also uses cameras and a centralised computer system which receives information from the sensor network and automatically makes adjustments to traffic flow.

Smart Cars and Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication

 Cars of the future will be smarter and safer. They will be able to monitor the alertness of the driver and communicate with each other to avoid collisions. On-board computers are already creating a huge amount of data and as big data analytics improve, further trends and inefficiencies will be identified. Vehicles will also be able to communicate with each other about traffic, weather and road conditions and warn the driver about potential safety hazards. In the future, system could automatically take over braking or steering if they sense an imminent accident. Advanced sensors within the vehicle could also monitor a driver’s heart rate, eye movement and brain activity to detect issues ranging from drowsiness to a heart attack.

Plastic Roadways

In India, an innovative way of dealing with the 15,000 tons of plastic waste generated daily has been devised. The common plastic waste has been used as a partial substitute for the bitumen in roadways. This has a number of advantages as it uses a largely non-recyclable waste product to build stronger roads, which also cost less to construct. This simple technique requires little specialists’ knowledge, and does not require large investment or changes to road-laying methods.

The method can use a variety of plastic types, including multi-layered wrappings, which are shredded, heated and used to cover granite pebbles. More than 5,000 km plastic roads have been laid in 11 states in India.

Self-Healing Concrete Surfaces

Researchers in the UK are working on a self-healing concrete that uses bacteria to seal cracks that can lead to decay and collapse. The aim is to create a concrete blend containing bacteria in microcapsules that will germinate if water seeps through a crack. The bacteria will produce limestone as they multiply sealing the crack before the water can cause structural damage. Self-healing concrete could vastly increases the life of concrete structures, removes the need for repairs and reduce the lifetime cost of a structure by up to 50%.

Warm Mix Asphalt

In future use of warm mix asphalt will become a norm, as it is manufactured and laid at lot less temperature than the hot asphalt. Its use will reduce carbon emission and the newly laid road surfaces could be opened to traffic earlier as well.

Solar Roadways

The Solar Roadways project, the brainchild of Scott and Julie Brusaw, aims to replace standard asphalt roads, parking spaces, pavements and bike paths with advanced solar panels that generate clean and renewable power. The panels also contain LED lighting, heating elements to melt snow, inductive charging capability for electric vehicles while driving, and even some storm water management abilities.

(Note: The article has been compiled on the basis of information collected from different sources)