Astucia - SolarLite road studs, A413 Norfolk
Location
UK, Norfolk, A413 Haddiscoe
Application
Night delineation, fog guidance
Products
Astucia SolarLite road studs
The Problem
The A143 links the Norfolk Broads towns of Beccles and Great Yarmouth. The road crosses the Haddiscoe Marshes on a 2 km long, sinuous twisting, slightly raised embankment known as the Haddiscoe Dam.
Over a three year period there were 22 recorded accidents, 2 of which involved loss of life, along with 6 causing serious injury and 14 others considered as minor. The dominant accident type, comprising of 95%, of all accidents recorded were as a result of loss of control. With its route across the low lying marshes a high number of these accidents appeared to be during damp and misty conditions that are often prevalent with 40% occurring in the dark and 65% when the road was wet.
The Solution
To reduce the number of accidents at this location Norfolk County Council took a number of initiatives which involved resurfacing the road to improve skid resistance and also the installation of Astucia solar powered road studs.
The installation initially carried out by Astucia in August 1999 comprised of over 200 SolarLite™ D series white road studs providing delineation of the centre line.
The positioning of the SolarLite studs has been carefully designed to provide drivers with advanced indication of the nature of the road layout ahead.
Following the success of the initial installation the location has been enhanced further by updating the installation with the Astucia SolarLite™ embedded stud.
The SolarLite series from Astucia (UK) Ltd., with its built in solar powered Light Emitting Diode (LED) automatically illuminates from dusk to dawn and is visible for up to ten times further than the traditional retro-reflective passive road stud where with vehicle headlamps, even in best condition, will only provide up to 90 metres visibility; by contrast, the Astucia SolarLite road stud can be seen up to 1,000 metres away regardless of the headlight beam.
At 100 km/h (62 mph) a visible distance of 90 m only represents a reaction time of 3.2 seconds, which is not enough time to properly judge certain road hazards such as the radius of a bend. With the increased visibility of the SolarLite road stud this reaction time is increased to over 30 seconds.
Benefits
- The accident frequency has reduced from 7.3 per yr to 2.3
- The accident severity ratio has reduced from 36% to zero
- 10 times greater visibility for drivers than with traditional reflective road studs
- Highlights sharp bends and other road hazards
In the first 2 years 2 months since the initial scheme introduction there were only 5 recorded accidents (all slight) of which none occured during darkness and only one in wet conditions.
Testimonial
Nevil Calder, principal engineer – safety and traffic management for Norfolk County Council is delighted with the results of the safety scheme, he advised: “In the first two years since the scheme was introduced we noticed an immediate improvement in road safety, there were only 5 recorded accidents all of which were slight with none occurring in the dark and only one during wet conditions. The overall accident frequency has reduced from 7.3 per year to 2.3 whilst the severity ratio has reduced from 36% to zero.”