The latest-generation Astucia SolarLite flush-mounted road studs offer lower risks to bikers and cyclists, as well as giving a ten-fold improvement in night time road visibility.

The British-designed Astucia solar-powered road-stud has already made a significant improvement to driving safety on a number of key roads, with a tenfold boost in visibility compared with the traditional reflective “cats-eye.”  In addition, the latest generation of “smart” road stud sits flush with the road surface, eliminating a source of risk to cyclists and motor cyclists.

The Astucia SolarLite™ stud stores solar energy during the day, then built-in Light Emitting Diodes automatically illuminate from dusk to dawn, providing drivers with up to 900 metres of visibility. This is ten times greater than the retro-reflective road stud which relies on being illuminated by the headlight beam of the approaching vehicle. At best it has a useful range of 90 metres.

For a car driver, the latest flush-fitting design, which rises in a smoothly profiled dome to less than 4mm above the road surface, eliminates the annoying ‘thump-thump’ as one changes lanes. For cyclists and motor cyclists, particularly in slippery conditions, it removes a major risk of instability.  With a maximum diameter of 112 mm the polycarbonate surface of the SolarLite road studs is also much narrower than traditional road markers, further minimising the risk of slippage.

Martin Dicks, the former London firefighter who conceived the smart, safe and sustainable concept that created the Astucia SolarLite stud, is a keen motorcyclist. Hehas first-hand experience of the ‘nervous’ feeling created by some road markings.

“These days I ride a BMW tourer, one of the heaviest and most stable motor cycles on the road. Even that sometimes gets shaken all over the place by over-prominent road markers” say Dicks. “It doesn’t require much imagination to guess the effects on a lighter motorcycle or a pedal cycle. Using our technology to develop a flush-mounted road stud, simply made common sense.”

The latest SolarLite road stud also makes financial sense for local authorities, who are required to inspect every highway and regularly replace damaged or missing road markings. The new flush-mounted studs are significantly more resistant to damage from winter snow ploughing and from heavy vehicle damage.

Each Astucia stud has a projected life of eight to ten years, compared with just one to two years for a conventional retro-reflective stud. Over its lifespan the more sophisticated Astucia “smart” stud will therefore cost no more than a traditional cat’s eye. The units’ efficiency can also allow a reduction in the use of energy- and maintenance-intensive, carbon-inefficient, streetlights.

In the UK, Astucia road studs are currently installed on roads in Lothian in Scotland, the Vale of Glamorgan in Wales, in Essex, Buckinghamshire, Norfolk and Oxfordshire, where they have demonstrated a reduction in serious accident levels of over 70%.

In addition to making a valuable contribution to safety on highways, the Astucia solar-powered studs are also proving to be a smart, safe and sustainable solution to marking demarking dedicated cycle lanes and routes such as those created by Sustrans. This in turn increases safety and encourages users to get on their bikes and cycle.

The Astucia solar powered studs are being used on cycle routes in and out of the city of Peterborough and in locations such as Addenbrookes and between Girton and Oakington on the outskirts of Cambridge. By combining pedal power with solar power, the studs provide a sustainable solution to waymarking the routes for cyclists, providing demarcation of combined pedestrian and cycle paths so that cyclists and pedestrian remain separated. They also provide delineation of the edges of cycle paths so that cyclists can safely stay on track even if being dazzled by the headlights of oncoming vehicles on adjacent roads.