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The transport of the future – electric cars and cars with autopilot – will require new infrastructure, so the roads will certainly change soon. Let’s see what they will be
How electric cars will change the roads
Already, European countries are introducing laws that restrict the use or sale of fossil fuel vehicles. Scandinavia is moving the fastest in this direction: for example, Sweden will ban the sale of cars with internal combustion engines in 2030, and Norway by 2025. At the same time, it is assumed that the Norwegians will abandon conventional cars in favor of electric cars by April 2022. This trend is confirmed by statistics: the share of electric cars in the monthly sales of new cars in the summer of 2021 reached 78%.
In addition to electricity, there are at least two more types of fuel that are used as an alternative to gasoline, diesel and gas – biofuel and hydrogen fuel. However, they have drawbacks that prevent them from taking the lead: mass production of biofuels will require more deforestation, and hydrogen fuel can be explosive.
Cars with electric motors are free from the disadvantages of hydrogen and biofuel cars. However, they have another drawback: they cannot be “refueled” in a couple of minutes. For example, powerful 350 kW stations charge electric cars up to 80% in 20–30 minutes. And if you can find a charging station in the city before the battery runs out, it can be a problem on the highway. Therefore, drivers may need to recharge on the go. The concept of an electrified track was proposed in Sweden: a contact rail is mounted in a 50-meter section of the road, to which a car with a current collector is connected. Thanks to this idea, you can abandon charging stations, because the car will be able to receive electricity on the go. And drivers will be able to forget about the need to stop and look for a gas station.
To use this technology, roads with a harder surface are needed. Asphalt is not suitable here – its surface is too soft to mount any structures into it. Cement concrete can be used as an alternative to asphalt.
What does a concrete road look like?
Modern “concrete” is a monolithic, even, strong and durable coating, and not a structure of separate slabs with joints. Instead of bitumen, as on asphalt roads, concrete roads use cement as a binder. In our country, such coverage can be seen on the runways. In other countries, concrete roads are widely used: in European countries, their share in federal highways varies from 13% to 70%, and in the USA, about 60% of roads are cement concrete.
According to the estimates of the Russian Association of Concrete Roads, in our country, roads with such a surface account for no more than 2% of the road network, but the situation may change: in 2017, the government of our country issued a decree according to which the service life of roads before major repairs should increase from 12 to 24 years old. At the same time, the current roads made of asphalt last no longer than seven years, and with a cement-concrete coating – 30 years or more. Therefore, for example, today concrete roads are considered as one of the priority options in the construction of a section of the M12 highway from Kazan to Yekaterinburg.
When building roads with cement concrete pavement, it is important to strictly follow the technology of work: correcting errors can be time-consuming and costly. Otherwise, cement concrete roads have more advantages:
- Not only are they more durable, they also require fewer repairs. The fact is that in a warm climate, cement concrete roads do not melt and do not deform, and in the cold they do not become brittle and do not crack.
- Concrete roads can withstand increased loads, so heavy vehicles can drive on them year-round, without restrictions.
- Such roads are more environmentally friendly: cement does not emit toxic gases when heated and is 100% recyclable.
- Due to the hard surface, fuel consumption when driving on concrete roads is reduced by 3-6%. And the lower the fuel consumption, the less carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.
- In addition, as mentioned above, electric vehicle chargers can be built into such roads.
It is assumed that the development of the construction of concrete roads throughout the country will be established in the near future. According to the Union of Cement Producers, the demand for raw materials will allow loading enterprises, whose capacities are currently used only by 48%. At the same time, the plants themselves are located near the facilities under construction and routes, which will make it possible to deliver raw materials without problems. Also in our country there are contractors with relevant experience and skills, since the highest quality runways are built using a similar technology.
Plastic roads and solar panels
Scientists and engineers offer roads from other materials. For example, the Dutch company KWS is developing roads from recycled plastic. The concept of PlasticRoad looks like this: hollow slabs are made of plastic, which are placed on a solid base. Inside the plates, you can place water pipes or other communications.
Plastic has been used in road construction before, but only as an additional component for asphalt. PlasticRoad, on the other hand, is made only from recycled plastic, which reduces carbon emissions by 50-70% compared to the production of conventional roads.
So far, PlasticRoad is planned to be used for roads with a small load: bike paths, sidewalks and parking lots. It is not clear whether trucks or a large stream of cars will be able to drive on plastic plates.
Another material that can be used as a road surface is solar panels. The most futuristic project is being developed by the American Solar Roadways: the company proposes to use illuminated panels. Thanks to it, the road will project markings, highlight pedestrian crossings or road signs.
As a test, Solar Roadways covered a car park with solar panels. The test showed that the surface was able to withstand a load of up to 100 tons. But such roads would be very expensive. ExtremeTech estimated that it would cost about $56 trillion to replace all US roads with Solar Roadways panels.
Another drawback of plastic and “solar” roads is the lack of ready-made infrastructure for their mass production. When switching to such a new technology, it will take time for engineers and builders to master it and avoid design errors.
Roads with sensors for drones
The appearance of the roads of the future will also be affected by the development of unmanned vehicles, and this will happen sooner than it seems: Yandex plans to launch passenger transportation using unmanned taxis in Innopolis as early as 2021, and a little later in Moscow.
If the launch of drones is successful and they begin to be widely used, then infrastructure will be needed to “connect” such objects with each other and coordinate traffic.
The concept of intelligent transport systems (ITS) suggests that there will be sensors on the roads that can track traffic and regulate it. This system can be used not only for unmanned vehicles, but also for ordinary cars. Partially, it is already being implemented in Moscow, where since 2018 they began to actively implement Smart Traffic Lights.
The system works like this – sensors built into the road collect information about transport and transmit it to a central server. Then the neural network analyzes this information and determines how to set the time for traffic lights in the city.
With the development of unmanned vehicles, such technologies will be useful not only in big cities, but also beyond them: for example, for autonomous trucks. Although they themselves are equipped with a large number of sensors, a “smart” system on the road will allow you to coordinate traffic in order to avoid accidents and deliver goods on time.