Dutch roads smarten up

By Nina Notman2014-07-03T00:00:00

Nina Notman explores the possibility of interactive, sustainable highways

Glow in the dark road lines that eliminate the need for street lights and images of huge snowflakes that appear on road surfaces when temperatures drop may sound fictional, but a project in the Netherlands is set to bring these ideas to fruition.

The aim of the Smart Highway project is to revolutionise the roads that we drive along. It is a collaboration between the Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde and the Dutch construction firm Heijmans. Daan’s earlier socially-conscious, smart designs have been exhibited worldwide including at Tate Modern in London, UK and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The locations of the Smart Highway project’s first public viewings were less illustrious: two 500-metre stretches of the N329 highway near Oss in the Netherlands.

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