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'Smart Pavement' Gives New Meaning To 'Information Superhighway'
Smart City technology has found a way to incorporate blanket sensors into road pavement to provide continuous 'services' and connections to your autonomous and traditional automobile. Commercial companies will deliver Internet-based content to passengers while government entities will track and monitor every movement and behavior. ? TN Editor
Self-driving cars have captured the limelight when it comes to how you'll get around in the future, but one Kansas City technology startup is looking at the road itself.
Integrated Roadways is developing "smart pavement" technology that would not only help increase roadway safety but could also serve as the platform for Wi-Fi for cars and other future mobility services.
"Smart pavement is a factory-produced pavement system that transforms the road into a sensor, data and connectivity network for next-generation vehicles," said Tim Sylvester, founder, chief executive and president of Integrated Roadways.
The road system uses high-resolution fiber-optic sensors and other technologies inside the pavement to detect vehicle position in real time, as well as roadway conditions. This technology would detect crashes as they occur, for instance, and automatically notify emergency responders to those crashes.
Integrated Roadway's smart pavement is about to be put to the test. The company announced this spring that the Colorado Department of Transportation has awarded a $2.75 million contract for a five-year smart pavement project on U.S. 285 near Fairplay, Colo., south of Breckenridge.
The company, along with partners Kiewit Infrastructure Co., Cisco Systems, WSP Global and Wichita Concrete Pipe, will build about a half-mile of smart pavement on the highway to collect data on run-off-the-road crashes, as well as automatically alert authorities of the crashes.
"It is such a beautiful location that people get caught up in the view and they miss the turn," Sylvester said. "So they go off the edge of the road in a rural area and somebody might not have seen them."
When Sylvester approached Colorado transportation officials about the concept of intelligent infrastructure and the myriad of things it could do, they were intrigued.