Skip to main content

Solar road studs aid night time road safety on the M20

UK company, Astucia, part of the Clearview Traffic Group, and Balfour Beatty Mott MacDonald has installed over 4,000 Astucia SolarLite road studs on the M20 junctions 8 to 9 between Ashford and Maidstone, on behalf of the UK Highways Agency. This section of the motorway lacks street lighting increasing the potential risk for night time accidents. The project involved upgrading the existing road markings and road studs to address the high number of collisions recorded in the dark and wet conditions. The exis
October 23, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
UK company, 1875 Astucia, part of the 557 Clearview Traffic Group, and 3902 Balfour Beatty 1869 Mott MacDonald has installed over 4,000 Astucia SolarLite road studs on the M20 junctions 8 to 9 between Ashford and Maidstone, on behalf of the 1841 UK Highways Agency.

This section of the motorway lacks street lighting increasing the potential risk for night time accidents. The project involved upgrading the existing road markings and road studs to address the high number of collisions recorded in the dark and wet conditions. The existing traditional retro-reflective studs, many of which had become faulty, were removed and replaced with over Astucia SolarLite road studs.

Astucia claim their road studs have demonstrated that they can form the future of traffic safety by providing enhanced safety for road users reducing night time casualties by up to 70 per cent.  The M20 installation joins other equally vital and environmentally conscious installations already seen on the A20 in the county fondly known as the Garden of England.

Astucia managing director Nick Lanigan states “This is a superb example of the type of scenario where installing Astucia SolarLite road studs will make a real difference to the safety record and the public perception of their safety whilst travelling on this section of the M20 motorway. These unique studs significantly improve lane and road layout visibility during the hours of darkness, resulting in drivers adjusting their driving speed and behaviour and reducing the amount and severity of night time accidents.”

Related Content

  • June 26, 2012
    euroFOT study demonstrates benefits of driver assistance systems
    Today, the euroFOT consortium published the findings of a four-year study focused on the impact of driver assistance systems in the Europe. The €22 million (US$27.5 million) European Field Operational Test (euroFOT) project which began in June 2008 and involved 28 companies and organisations, was led by Aria Etemad from Ford’s European Research Centre in Aachen, Germany. The study looked at existing technologies and their potential to both enhance safety and reduce environmental impact. euroFOT also reveale
  • January 30, 2012
    Toll performance exceeds expectations, improves travel times
    Jean Harito, Attica Tollway Operations Authority and Steve Morello, Egis Projects describe how looking to exceed contractual obligations makes good operational and business sense. The Attica Tollway is a modern, 65km, access-controlled urban motorway with three lanes in each direction. It constitutes the ring road around the extensive metropolitan area of the Greek capital, Athens, and forms the backbone of the entire road network in the Attica region. By ensuring freeflow operating conditions, the Attica T
  • April 12, 2017
    AECOM appointed technical partner for A303 improvements scheme
    Global infrastructure services firm AECOM has secured an eight-year contract with Highways England to work as its technical partner for the major A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down improvements scheme. AECOM, working with its supply chain partners Mace and Mouchel, will deliver a range of multidisciplinary services to support all phases of the project, which will upgrade the eight-mile stretch of the A303 from single to dual carriageway to create a high-quality, reliable route to the south west, improve safet
  • March 11, 2015
    Keeping a watching brief over traffic flows
    Monitoring traffic flows is set to become an even bigger challengebut a revolution in camera technology can help, as Patrik Anderson explains. By 2025 almost 60% of the world’s population will live in urban areas and in those cities there will be an estimated 6.2 billion private motorised trips every day. In order to manage this level of traffic growth, traffic management centres (TMCs) will need to both increase their monitoring capabilities and be able to detect traffic problems quickly, efficiently and r