New Markings Applied on Test Track for Realistic Urban Area

30 August 2022 – “Automated driving is seen as the future of private transport. Automated driving technology is already in use in driver assistance systems today. Reliable infrastructure is needed to achieve the greatest possible safety in road traffic. Modern marking systems not only have to be detected by the sensors of automated vehicles, they also need to be easily detectable by the human eye,” explains Friedrich Wiesinger, Team Leader Product Development at SWARCO Road Marking Systems. As an exclusive partner of Digitrans, SWARCO Road Marking Systems applied road markings on the proving ground in St. Valentin. The new City Zone of the Digitrans test center for automated driving allows for a wide variety of realistic simulations pertaining to urban areas. Real-time testing is conducted to determine the extent to which the sensors of automated vehicles detect the markings.

Road Markings to Create Real Urban Testing Environment

The city traffic zone encompasses a 450m long network of roads and paths, simulating an urban environment. Two SWARCO Road Marking Systems teams applied different markings used in urban areas, such as pedestrian crossings, bicycle lanes and crossings, and multi-lane intersections, including a bus lane. Parking spaces, a paid short-term parking zone, as well as no-stopping and no-parking zones were marked, too. “Thanks to the markings applied in the City Zone, it is possible to simulate many different traffic situations in urban areas as close to real life as possible. In this way, we can determine the detectability of these marking systems by conducting real-time tests with autonomous vehicles. The goal of these tests is to make traffic situations more visible for both humans and machines, thus increasing traffic safety in urban areas,” Wiesinger adds. 

Proven Systems for Enhanced Visibility and Safety

Here, SWARCO Road Marking Systems relied on two tried and tested systems: 
the standard marking system and the high-performance marking system.
The standard marking system is a combination of cold spray plastics and SWARCO SOLIDPLUS 10. This system is composed of high-grade SWARCOFLEX standard glass beads and 10% SWARCO SOLIDPLUS. The high-performance marking system is a combination of cold spray plastics and SWARCO SOLIDPLUS 100. This system excels especially thanks to the excellent retroreflection of premium reflective glass beads. For this reason, the high-performance marking system was chosen for dangerous areas that are particularly challenging, such as pedestrian crossings, intersections or two merging lanes. 
The comprehensive tests serve to assess the different road markings as to their detectability by the sensors of automated vehicles. These test findings are essential for developing marking systems further. “Thanks to the realistic conditions in the City Zone, data and measured values can be analyzed promptly at SWARCO Road Marking Systems’ Center of Competence and used for further developments,” Wiesinger explains.