The Sustainable Highway

L. (László) I. Vákár

Air pollution is high on the political agenda worldwide. Emissions have to be reduced. Tighter legislation is making noise nuisance and air quality increasingly important when it comes to obtaining environmental permits for new or expanded infrastructure, especially in densely populated urban areas.

The ‘Sustainable Highway’ concept offers an integrated solution to motorway emission and noise problems. It consists of a motorway canopy made of cold‑bendable laminated glass. This transparent material is bendable on site at ambient temperature. In panes of this glass the positive qualities of warm bent, laminated glass and of plastics are united. They are flexible as plastic and lightweight. Their optical quality is much better than the one of traditionally warm bent, laminated glass and their price is considerably lower, comparable with the one of synthetics. It only pollutes slightly, does not scratch, it does not age and therefore requires little maintenance. Moreover, it is of value from the point of view of sustainable building.

Key factors here are durability, safety, cost and revenue. The design yields a significant reduction in noise, fine particulates, NOx, SOx and CO2. The air is cleansed of fine particulates using electrostatic filtering while the nitrogen oxide emitted by the vehicles is disposed of by adsorption. Furthermore, solar cells incorporated into the glass produce clean energy. The excess heat that accumulates in the summer is stored in the groundwater and used to heat the asphalt in the winter. This still leaves plenty of heat for such purposes as domestic heating. The design therefore helps to reduce CO2 emissions. Furthermore, biofuel can be produced under the canopy, creating a conversion of carbon dioxide into oxygen. It also reduces the infrastructure footprint, freeing up building land in urban environments. The more even temperature, the reduced ultraviolet irradiation and the elimination of salt increase the life of the road surface, consequently reducing traffic jams due to maintenance.

The Sustainable Highway makes it possible to increase road capacity, boosts urban accessibility and supports government policy aimed at concentrating new build in urban environments, thus saving the green area.

It has been granted the “Nationale Geluid en Trillingen Innovatieprijs 2007” (National Noise and Vibrations Innovation Award 2007) and the “Nationale Innovatieprijs Luchtkwaliteit 2007” (National Innovation Award Air Quality 2007).

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