The government is planning to adopt the technology of having luminous roads in our country for providing light to dark stretches of hilly roads that don’t have any streetlights.
In what comes as the implementation of a technological breakthrough in our country, dark and unlit roads of India could soon feature luminous highways. Basically, these highways do not need any streetlights as such to provide light and instead emit light on their own due to a photoluminescent coating that is similar to glow in the dark paints, which creates lines of light. Construction of these roads costs 15-20 percent more than a normal highway and the coating gets charged from sunlight during the day time.
Netherlands already has these highways and we could implement the same for unlit roads in the hilly areas of India. The lines that glow in the night will help in safe driving conditions even if it is foggy. This concept will turn out to be beneficial in India because energy consumed by streetlights can also be saved in addition to the added amount of safety. According to studies, most accidents take place between 6 PM to 3 AM and this technology can help in reducing crashes and fatalities significantly.
The innovative idea can help in saving some amount from the 1 percent used for providing public lighting of the total energy produced in India. Energy consumption in this regard is expected to double to 13.2 (terawatt-hours) TWh by 2020 as compared to the level in 2010. For improving road safety further, the government is planning to install rumble strips along lanes and also keep a national road safety policy. Around 1.5 lakh people die and three lakh people get injured from five lakh road accidents occurring in India each year.
Source – ETAuto.com