Let’s imagine a road that glows in the dark by itself, without the need for street lamps. Is it nonsense? That’s what they thought in Malaysia a few years ago, but then they tried to turn such an idea into reality. How does it all work?
The visionary concept of shining roads appeared at the beginning of this millennium. Back then, of course, it was only a fantasy of design studio employees, futuristic visions that still had a long way to go. At present, however, we can already see the first real attempts in Malaysia, where some road sections were painted with luminescent paint. The goal was to replace expensive street lighting while maintaining road safety. But as it turned out, scientists are still not at the end of their research in this direction.
Also watch the youtube video from NST Online:
It’s much more complicated than that
Although it may seem that this is a brilliant idea worthy of at least a Nobel Prize, unfortunately, practice for the time being shows rather the opposite. Color with phosphorescent it absorbs daylight, which slowly emits back in the form of visible radiation after dark. So, the road should be charged during the day and light up at night – all this, after paying for the paint and coating, completely free of charge. It’s a nice idea, but it has its pitfalls…
It only lasts a few hours
The first test days already showed that it will unfortunately not be as easy as we would like. Widespread implementation of such a theory in practice is impossible for several reasons. The first of them, which probably occurs to every owner of solar lamps planted in the garden, is the gradual loss of the intensity of the emitted light. While it might still be “usable” just after dark, it weakens significantly during the night. At the moment of the deepest darkness and also the fatigue of the drivers, it was rather just laying out the basic route of communication, but it certainly did not offer any clarity in the traffic situation.
The need for frequent renewal increases costs
Another problem that experts will have to deal with if they really want to put such an idea into practice one day is the maintenance and lifespan of such coatings. The road is not a surface that can be treated with care, and it is a layer of luminescent paint constantly exposed . We can remind you that there is also horizontal marking anyway, however this new type of paint does not have sufficient durability for the time being. Frequent renewal of the coating would then, figuratively speaking, wipe out the financial savings we want from such a solution.
Pedestrians are out of luck
Finally, experts also criticize the security point of view when electric lighting serves not only the road itself, but also its immediate surroundings. The driver thus has at least a basic overview of pedestrians or animals moving around the roadside. Luminescent paint cannot offer that. Although the novelty may help in certain cases, it is still really too early to think about replacing street lighting with painted roads.
An important pioneering step
Although the Malaysian experiment represented an interesting pioneering step in the search for alternative solutions, for the time being it fell into the famous Zimmermann dead end. At the moment, therefore, LED lamps and other less energy-demanding, but still more traditional lighting sources still appear to be more suitable. However, it is not excluded that in the foreseeable future luminescent colors will be used for more visible horizontal road markings. That would be an ideal use for such a discovery for now.
