3M eyes bright future for safety

You will have seen it as you arrived: you can hardly miss it! 3M’s Transportation Safety Roadshow, in a custom-designed 18-wheel, 53-foot long truck, is parked right here at ITS America Detroit today and tomorrow, as part of a 43-city tour of the US and Canada. This amazing vehicle offers interactive experiences featuring hands-on, in-person, and virtual demonstrations of innovative 3M technologies The 3M truck is packed with interactive demonstrations and experiences from 3M’s Transportation Safety Divisi
June 5, 2018 Read time: 3 mins
You will have seen it as you arrived: you can hardly miss it! 4080 3M’s Transportation Safety Roadshow, in a custom-designed 18-wheel, 53-foot long truck, is parked right here at ITS America Detroit today and tomorrow, as part of a 43-city tour of the US and Canada. This amazing vehicle offers interactive experiences featuring hands-on, in-person, and virtual demonstrations of innovative 3M technologies


The 3M truck is packed with interactive demonstrations and experiences from 3M’s Transportation Safety Division. Demonstrations include Anti-Graffiti, to show how signs can be kept clear and legible; Fluorescent Technology, to understand how fluorescent signs enhance the visibility of signs in dawn, dusk and inclement weather conditions; Virtual Reality, to experience the possibilities of how autonomous vehicles interact with traffic signs, work zones, and lane markings; and Innovation Theater, to watch demonstrations on 3M technology from the driver’s seat.

Two major breakthroughs

Meanwhile, on the 3M booth in the exhibition hall, while many companies talk about the future, often in aspirational terms, 3M will feature two major pavement marking breakthrough products, specifically designed for machine vision, as well as human vision – today’s needs as well as tomorrow’s.

Automated vehicle cameras depend on visible markings to support a variety of functions, including ADAS, especially at night or in the rain. 3M’s Connected Roads All Weather Elements, which will launch in August, takes pavement markings to new levels of performance for drivers and ADAS systems in virtually any conditions. Importantly, 3M Elements are compatible with most liquid pavement marking binders and installs with double-drop systems. Moreover, it requires 20% less elements than previous generation 3M Reflective Elements and is the company’s most efficient optics for liquid pavement markings yet.

The other major breakthrough - the next evolution in pavement marking tapes, optimised for both human and machine vision - that visitors can see now, here in Detroit, is the 3M Connected Roads Contrast Tape Series 380ADAS. Currently in market tests prior to a full launch early next year, 380ADAS provides a 60% increase in visibility distance versus beaded paint products in night time rainy conditions; and increased contrast of white and yellow lane markings with black edges on both sides – the wider black edges provide a larger contrast target for camera detection at longer distances.

Booth 329

For more information on companies in this article

3M

Related Content

  • IBTTA’s Jones sees turbulent times and a bright future for tolling
    November 10, 2017
    Colin Sowman talks to IBTTA’s Pat Jones about the future of tolling in a fast-changing world. Pat Jones may have been executive director and CEO of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) for 15 years but in his words: “Never before have I seen so much change coming so fast in the transportation and tolling industry.” Amidst all this change, tolling companies are asked to provide funding for roadway building or improvements which will be repaid for over, say, a 30-year concess
    Read More
  • Driverless vehicles ‘need quality road markings’
    September 20, 2013
    UK company Quality Marking Systems has released its comments on a recent road safety article in the Road Safety Markings Association’s (RSMA’s) Top Marks magazine entitled ‘ERF at the forefront of improving road safety in Europe’. The article examines the growing importance of a well maintained road infrastructure and indicates that the European Union Road Federation (ERF) has initiated a very promising cooperation with the European Road Assessment Programme and the European Association of Vehicle Manuf
    Read More
  • Internet-connected cars their functionality and safety challenges
    February 27, 2013
    Internet-connected cars are poised to flood the market in the near future. Pete Goldin considers the functionality they offer, the technology they use and the challenge they represent in terms of driver safety. Many vehicles on the road today offer some sort of inter­net connectivity and experts agree that this capability will become a competi­tive differentiator in the automotive industry in the next few years. The era of the digital vehicle, it seems, has started. “We clearly see that cars in the near f
    Read More
  • Machine vision’s image of road management’s future
    June 11, 2015
    Q-Free’s Marco Sinnema looks at how the commoditisation of high-quality vision-based solutions is widening their application. Machine vision technology’s entry into the ITS/traffic management sector has followed a classic top-down path. This is unsurprising given the extremely demanding performance criteria which are the standard in its market of origin, manufacturing processing. Very high image qualities combined with frame rates often in the hundreds per second range resulted in vision systems with capabi
    Read More

Highlighted Content