Six awesome road technologies you might not know e...

Here’s a bunch of neat road gadgetry that not only improves safety and makes traffic more efficient, or helps charge a village’s electrical grid, but does so in an interesting and intelligent way.

Sydney locals will know this one. To avoid motorists disobeying warning signs and heading further towards potential danger, a company called Laservision developed the SOFTSTOP™ Barrier System in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. It’s basically a huge red “STOP” projected onto a man-made waterfall. The genius of this “pseudo-holographic” image is that it appears to be an impenetrable wall, it’s also visually striking and, as the name suggests, it’s soft, since it’s water. Tunnel safety is a big deal when you think back to major disasters in Europe like the Mont Blanc Tunnel fire in 1999, which took the lives of 39 people, so this is totally genius. And, despite being inspired by the sobering topic of road safety, we think this waterfall sign is a fun concept.

We’ll give you a prize if you can pronounce ‘Reissverschlusssystem’. Bonus prize if you do it while chewing on a salty pretzel. It roughly translates from German as “the zipper system” and it exists far beyond the land of the famed autobahn. There are a few in the States, including a New York City motorway and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. As the name suggests, it’s a big zip in the form of a heavy machine that lifts and moves each barrier segment at a time in the centre of a highway to add a lane to the direction of travel that’s busiest. Sydney’s got its own on Victoria Road, too. A first for Australia, but it’s dedicated to creating an express bus lane.

In 2016, the small Normandy village of Tourouvre-au-Perche opened a road… Big story, huh? This was no simple slick of bitumen though. In fact, it’s a route (called the Wattway) paved with 2,800 square metres of solar-sucking electricity-generating panels covered in layers of silicon, designed to power the village’s lights. It’s durability remains to be seen, and you’ve gotta wonder about how grippy it will be. Nevertheless, other countries are going down a similar road – pun intended. The Netherlands are experimenting on alike technology, starting on bike lanes before expanding to roads that carry heavier vehicles. While China recently announced it opened the world’s first solar highway in January 2018, at roughly double the size of the French version.

One of the strangest sayings you’ll hear in Switzerland is “Attention à l'écart, Toyota.” But in a country where you and your car can catch the train together, ensuring your car does indeed ‘mind the gap’ somehow makes sense. Across the mountainous high alps of Switzerland you’ll find a number of car trains. Sure, it’s not news that you can pop your car on the train – we all know The Ghan or the Eurotunnel – but these Swiss systems are more directly drive-on drive-off, with the driver remaining in the car, if they desire. These trains make it possible to take the worry out of driving along a high mountain pass in a blizzard.

This new trend in road marking just might change travel photos forever. Imagine if this takes hold in London – what will all the impersonators of the Beatles Abbey Road cover do? Similar to the way graphics are painted on our footy fields so that the images stand-up on the television broadcast, 3D road marking is now in vogue. The next time you think, ‘is that zebra crossing rising out of the ground?’ Think again. It’s just an o~p~t~i~c~a~l  i~l~l~u~s~i~o~n.

You’ll notice them popping up around your neighbourhood soon but outback Queensland is ahead of the game. The tiny town of Boulia was, reportedly, the first in Australia to get a three-dimensional crossing.

Bump. Bump. Bump. We all know that annoying sound and feeling when overtaking that slowcoach in front. Those pesky cat’s eyes! While a touch annoying, those bothersome bumps serve the vital purpose of reflecting the light from your car’s headlights late at night to keep you in your lane.  Expanding on the concept, in 2014 the first highway with glow-in-the-dark markings opened in The Netherlands. The paint absorbs energy from the sun during the day and glows luminescent at night, requiring no electricity – it also creates a rad Blade Runner sci-fi effect. This technology is a part of a project called Smart Highway – one that aims to have the technology to create roads that are not only more visible, but also tell you with colour when it's icy, shine interactive lights which illuminate a section of the road where traffic is active, and even (down the track) wirelessly charge your electric car as you drive. While Sweden does already have an electric road, though it isn’t wireless. Powerful stuff!