Skip to main content

Road signs in a flap

The Danish Road Directorate and Daluiso have developed a new type of road sign to make road works and maintenance tasks more efficient. Called 'swap signs', their function is to flap open/shut near road works, spring cleaning or grass cutting by contractors.
July 25, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
The 1845 Danish Road Directorate and Daluiso have developed a new type of road sign to make road works and maintenance tasks more efficient. Called 'swap signs', their function is to flap open/shut near road works, spring cleaning or grass cutting by contractors.

Importantly, the smart thing about these signs is that they are put in place, on the hard shoulder and central reservation, in the small hours when there is least traffic on the roads. They are deployed in neutral mode (grey background) and therefore no information is seen by the road user until work actually gets under way.

When the contractor arrives, the signs are activated by an internet-based system using a laptop. Only signs covering the area actually being worked on need be activated and, as the work progresses along the roadway, these swap signs can be flapped open and closed as need be.

As Daluiso points out, up to an hour of working time can be used by a contractor just setting up conventional signs. With swap signs, contractors can start work as soon as they reach the working area.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Smart Spanish city trials cell-based traffic management
    November 7, 2013
    David Crawford reports on an urban electronic nervous system. The northern Spanish city of Santander – historically a port - is now an emerging technology showcase attracting global attention as a prototype for a medium-sized smart city of the future. In a move to determine the optimal use of available data, it is creating a de-facto experimental laboratory for sensor and mobile phone-based urban traffic management and environmental monitoring innovations.
  • Autopilot highlights shape of Things
    March 30, 2020
    Driverless vehicles require rich data to operate safely, and a European consortium is harnessing the Internet of Things to help.
  • Seleta Reynolds: 'Set a vision, listen to your people & then get out of their way'
    September 12, 2022
    Los Angeles, host of the 2022 ITS World Congress, is a city where the only constant is change, says Seleta Reynolds of LA Metro. Adam Hill finds out about leadership, dream jobs and the 2028 Olympics...
  • New technology revolution in urban traffic control?
    January 26, 2012
    Urban traffic control is a well-defined and practised art. Nevertheless, there are technologies here and on the horizon with the potential to revolutionise how we do things. By Gavin Jackman and Andrew Kirkham, TRL, and Jason Barnes. Distributed monitoring and control of urban traffic networks and flows is nothing new. PC-based Urban Traffic Control (UTC) is now well established and operating in many locations around the world. However, it is worth considering the effects of the huge growth in the use of sm