With in-car cameras, radars and sensors now firmly entrenched among automakers, an international array of initiatives are exploring universal connectivity with the roadway itself. Advance warnings of signs, signals, construction sites, encroaching wildlife, fallen trees, sinkholes, crash scenes and traffic jams would all be communicated in real time to every driver passing through the vicinity.

Collectively called Intelligent Vehicle/Highway Systems (IVHS), smart roads or smart highways, the nascent technologies are initially abating traffic congestion and air pollution with the prospect of eventually linking up to highly sophisticated smart cities and smart grids designed for efficiently allocating utility-generated energy needs according to usage patterns and weather conditions.

The role played by transportation in conserving natural resources and protecting the planet is high on the agenda for December’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

“It’s on the cusp of things,” says TRW spokesman John Wilkerson, describing the company’s research into curve prediction and other vehicle-infrastructural innovations. He foresees “more impetus towards smart highways” as the concepts mature into marketable programs.

“We’re in the infancy stages at this point,” Wilkerson tells Aftermarket Business.

Global IVHS compatibility and implementation will likely generate a tab costing multiple billions of dollars and require international treaties in addition to a multitude of other complications, including the issue of motorists strenuously rejecting the intrusion of Big Brother – do you really want the county sheriff to know that you’re pulling up to the Dew Drop Inn just in time to hit last call? Or that you spend three evenings a week at campaign headquarters stuffing envelopes on behalf of your favorite political candidate?

With funding from several government, industry and institutional sources, Europe’s CVIS project (Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems) has already been showcasing technologies with working titles such as Road User Charging, Inter-Modal Traveler, Access to Green Zones, Danger Wrong Way Driver, Carpool Matcher, Children on the Road Warning, Local Commercial Advertisement and Parking Space Booking. The program is overseen by ERTICO, the acronym for Europe’s Intelligent Transportation Society.

Germany’s ProContour firm has developed an imdbedded-pavement unit that emits an alert if new tires are needed by measuring the tread depth as you drive over it at cruising speed. Police in Belguim and Germany who have tested the device are extolling its safety, fuel economy and traffic enforcement capabilities.

IBM is building intelligent transportation installations around the world “to help cities manage traffic congestion, improve urban environmental conditions and increase economic competitiveness,” according to Jamie Houghton, who heads the company’s Global Road User Charging division.

Applying the technology entails consulting with business owners in the target market, advanced transportation analytics and new sensor networks. Recent projects include applications in China, The Netherlands, Stockholm, Brisbane, Singapore, Dublin, London and Russia.

The Stockholm Congestion Charging System has lessened traffic in the Swedish capital by 18 percent, and the proportion of green tax-exempt vehicles on the roads has risen to 9 percent. Access to the city has significantly improved with lower travel times on inner city streets and approach roads.

Motorists are electronically charged a tax based on when and where they drive. Revenues are earmarked for investment in the region’s infrastructure.

“The scheme is meeting the objectives set by the city of reducing traffic volumes, improving accessibility for buses and cars and improving the environment,” reports Birger Hook, director of the Swedish Road Administration’s traffic registry.

Stockholm’s application is the largest of its kind in Europe, with 18 barrier-free control points around the charging zone equipped with cameras and a beacon system to identify vehicles and provide evidence to support collection from non-payers. Payment channels include automatic direct debit, a plan operated through banks, Internet-based accounts and services located inside retail stores such as 7-11.

“The system is based on an innovative business model, and is a landmark development for effective traffic management,” says IBM’s Houghton. “The successful rollout is certain to have a major influence on many other cities” facing similar challenges, he adds.

Audi, BMW, Daimler, Fiat, Renault and Volkswagen have combined forces in the European Car-2-Car Communication Consortium (C2C CC). In the United States, a joint public-private effort called the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership (CAMP) includes Ford, General Motors, Honda, Daimler, Toyota and the federal government, plus local and county road commissions.

CAMP has been utilizing a Smart Intersection built by Ford in Dearborn, Mich. to hone infrastructure-to-vehicle communications. “We’re looking for the next big thing in safety technologies. Our research is helping to identify the kinds of warnings that drivers may find both more effective and easier to understand,” says Joe Stinnett, lead technical engineer at Ford’s Active Safety Research and Advanced Engineering Center.

“What we’re hoping to prove here is we’re giving alerts to drivers who are distracted for any number of means, whether it was the sun in their eyes, an 18-wheeler was in front of them and they didn’t see the traffic light change, or any other level of distraction,” Stinnett explains.

“At the Smart Intersection we have some equipment actually installed at the intersection, and that equipment transmits information to your vehicle using a communications link very similar to WI-FI. The FCC has actually allocated a frequency specifically for this project,” he notes, adding that 40 percent of wrecks and 20 percent of traffic fatalities happen at intersections.

Changing population demographics could make that disturbing tally even more ominous. “Baby boomer soccer parents drove many of the auto safety advancements of the past two decades,” says Priya Prasad, a Ford safety specialist. “But their size in numbers could become a major safety issue over the next decade as their collective driving skills may fade.”

Prasad goes on to point out how “at the same time, their grandkids will be hitting the roads to create the largest population of teen drivers ever. There may be a greater need for active safety systems as the number of older and younger drivers increase.”

Among the more ambitious global IVHS initiatives is the Solar Roadways system originating from rural Sagle, Idaho. In August the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded the company a $100,000 grant to build a prototype road surface panel made from special glass backed by electronic components.

The panels will contain embedded LED lights that “paint” the road lines from beneath to provide safer nighttime driving along with communicating up-to-the-minute instructions such as “detour ahead” cautions. It can sense wildlife on the road and includes heating elements to prevent ice and snow buildup in addition to providing solar-generated electricity to facilitate plug-in vehicle charging stations – making electric cars practical for long trips. Excess juice from the road can be steered to the local utility’s powerlines for further distribution.

“It would be like driving down a runway,” where pilots receive constant operational updates; “this feature-packed system will become an intelligent highway that will double as a secure, intelligent, decentralized, self-healing power grid which will enable a gradual weaning from fossil fuels,” says Scott Brusaw, Solar Roadways’ president and CEO.

“We’ve been getting a lot of interest from all over the world,” he tells Aftermarket Business. The Czech Republic is intrigued with the idea, and as we went to press Brusaw was seeking a translator to clarify an email sent from Italy. “I don’t speak Italian.”

The target price tag is $10,000 per panel, entailing 440 panels per pavement lane-mile. “It’s a big investment, but most people don’t know how much it takes to build an asphalt road that gives nothing back,” says Brusaw.

A like-sized panel of asphalt costs $2,300, and in Idaho such surfaces must be redone every seven years. “We can make our panels last three times as long,” he reports, adding that “it’s an economic stimulus package in itself – we anticipate 2.5 million new full-time jobs in assembly alone.”

Brusaw recounts pitching his idea during the George W. Bush administration; at that time the environmental aspect was the inventor’s main promotional thrust. “What you really have here is an intelligent highway,” Brusaw was told: “Leave your environmental message at home. Everyone agrees with it but nobody wants to fund it.”