The road safety division of
Around 5km of the Interstate 75 work zone in Oakland County will be transformed over the next four months to improve safety for drivers and test advanced vehicle-to-infrastructure technologies.
In addition to rebuilding the interstate, the department of transportation will realign interchanges and upgrade geometrics to improve safety and travel time reliability. Installation of permanent roadside units are included to further support connected and automated vehicles.
3M’s role will be to provide advanced all-weather lane markings, retroreflective signs with smart sign technology and dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) devices for vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communications. Additionally, 3M will provide work crews ANSI-compliant apparel with 3M Scotchlite Reflective Material to aid worker safety throughout the project.
The company said that the I-75 modernisation project will position Michigan among the first states to test connected vehicle infrastructure at this scale. Signs, pavement markings, temporary traffic controls and vehicle identification systems need to be designed and implemented to pave the way for the data-driven environment of the cars and roadways of tomorrow.
“Michigan is globally recognised as the leader in automated vehicle research and technology and through our Planet M initiative, we have solidified ourselves as the hub for mobility innovation,” said department of transportation director Kirk Steudle.
Under Planet M, launched last summer, nearly 200km of roadway - including the rebuilt portion of I-275 near Livonia, I-96, I-696, US-23 and I-94 - will become a technology-enabled "smart corridor".
The city of Ann Arbor will be home to the only two permanent autonomous vehicle testing sites in the US by 2017, the state governor said during the launch. MCity at the
London lighting
Safety has been improved on some UK roads after UK civil and electrical engineering firm McCann completed 19km of LED lighting upgrades between J22-25 of the M62 motorway in England.
Work included installation of a central management system with remote manipulation of operational burn hours, control over the timing of dimmed lighting when there is minimal traffic and fault monitoring and energy consumption tracking systems.
The reporting and control mechanisms can also be operated on a light-by-light basis or across the entire network. One of the major benefits of the newly-installed LED lights is that they require no routine maintenance.
The company estimates that the upgrades will generate a 53% energy saving - reducing annual energy consumption from around 2,204kW/hrs to about 1,042kW/hrs.
“The benefits of our work on the M62 will be seen far into the future, offering a more sustainable approach to lighting,” said John McCann, managing director at McCann. In monetary value, the saving equates to €148,000 annually and over the 25-year lifespan LED lights, saving could top nearly €3.71 million. A total of 612tonnes of carbon emissions will be saved every year.
The high road
Better weather forecasting should lead to safer roads in New Zealand after the Milford Road Alliance began receiving enhanced services from the national MetService. These include severe weather threat matrices covering snow, strong winds and heavy rain with Free Air Freezing Level (FAFL).
Milford Road Alliance is a partnership between the
Downer NZ provides engineering and infrastructure management services to the public and private transport, infrastructure and resources sectors across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region.
The Alliance operates specialised weather and environmental data acquisition devices at both road and mountain levels. Information from these systems is supplied to the MetService so the service can make forecasts and relay them back to the Alliance.
The MetService is also now providing animating rainfall, snow and cloud ceiling forecast maps. Site-specific rainfall and temperature probability forecasts compete the picture in terms of value-added forecast services. On top of this, significant improvements to the distribution and communication of data and forecasts have been made.
The new services complement those already provided by MetService to the Alliance, said Kevin Thompson, Milford Road Alliance manager. The avalanche hazard forecast is compiled from information that includes existing avalanche start zone snow-pack conditions - snow pit studies.
Also included are weather observations from automated road and mountain weather stations that transmit data to MetService forecasters, the weather forecast and local knowledge of avalanche activity.
MetService - Meteorological Service of New Zealand - was established as a state-owned business in 1992 but had existed in many variations since before 1900. Self-proclaimed as the “coolest little weather company”, it employs about 250 people and is based in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand (see box).
Last month, New Zealand’s Transport Agency started a five-year road-weather data and data visualisation service with the MetService. Under the arrangement, MetService has contracted Finnish road-weather supplier Foreca to provide high-resolution road-weather forecasts which are based on MetService’s own forecasting services and a host of additional weather and road information.
MetService has secured data services from Foreca following a comparative performance evaluation conducted during winter/spring 2016 and a live systems trial held last November during the Desert Road Design Sprint. The Sprint was a multidisciplinary design programme to create solutions to reduce the number of accidents on the Desert Road where ice was a contributing factor.
The services fuse MetService observations from its network of automated roadside weather stations and expanding mobile measurement platforms with 360° photographs, high-resolution topography, road metadata and road modelling.
The Lewis and Porters Passes will be the first to see this level of forecasting with more areas to follow.
Forecasts at reduced resolution will be provided for the remainder of the State Highway network and these will be delivered several times per day, every day of the year, said Malcolme Flattery, senior project manager with the NZ Transport Agency’s Highways and Network Operations Group. The information will allow more comprehensive guidance from MetService to Transport Agency operational staff and contractors responsible for road management and maintenance.
Surfacing in Malaysia
Also in the Asia-Pacific region, road safety and surfacing solutions provider
Protasco, part of Protasco Berhad, a Malaysian engineering and infrastructure firm, now has exclusive access to Hitex International’s full range of anti-skid surfacing and road repair materials. Protasco will utilise them on many sections of Malaysia’s 10,000km of federal and state roads for which it has responsibilitiy, said Dato’ Ronnie Yap, executive director at Protasco Berhad.
Hitex is supplying Protasco with materials, equipment, training and necessary support to ensure that installations are completed quickly and efficiently.
Materials include Hitex Type 1 anti-skid surfacing materials which are fully accredited by the British Board of Agreement (BBA) certification scheme, the highest classification attainable. Hitex said that it is formulated for Malaysia’s sub-tropical conditions and provides a sustainable and durable solution for use on highly-trafficked, high-stress areas including off-ramps from busy toll roads and busy trunk roads. Traffic disruption and traffic management costs are kept to a minimum because it is quick and easy to install, noted Hitex.
To speed up the road maintenance process, Protasco is also using Hitex TexBand, a BBA-certified single-pass over-band and fill and over-band system which permanently repairs open joints and cracks in road surfaces.
Finn Goff, group commercial director at Hitex International Group, said that the agreement extends Hitex’s reach across Asia. “We have already received significant interest from surrounding countries including Singapore and Thailand,” he said.
