Astucia SolarLite, "smart" solar-powered road studs invented in the UK are making a significant contribution to road safety around the world.

A British designed "smart" road-stud is making a significant improvement to driving safety on roads around the world. It offers a significant boost in night-time or poor weather visibility compared with the traditional "cats-eye" road reflector, or lines painted down the side of roads.

The SolarLite studs are now in use in approximately 120 locations across the UK, in the Netherlands, France, Australia and in South Africa.

Road safety authorities have in several cases reported reductions in night time accidents of well over 70% since the installation of the "smart" road studs.

In addition the next generation of smart road markings are also being trialled. These can automatically illuminate to warn of bad weather or slow-moving traffic ahead, or can help reduce motorway hold-ups by automatically marking additional lanes to boost capacity.

The Astucia SolarLiteª solar-powered road stud was originally developed by a former London fire-fighter Martin Dicks and is totally self-sufficient. It stores energy collected by a solar panel during daylight, then built-in Light Emitting Diodes automatically illuminate after dark providing drivers with up to 900 metres of visibility.

This is ten times greater than the traditional, retro-reflective, passive road stud which relies on being illuminated by the headlight beam of the approaching vehicle, which at best has a useful range of 90 metres. The visibility of a night time corner without any delineation is of course, even less. The increased visibility given by the SolarLite road stud extends reaction times when driving at 100 km/h from 3.2 to over 30 seconds.

The use of Astucia solar-powered road studs on a notorious stretch of highway in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa demonstrated not only their effectiveness in road safety, but also their cost-effectiveness too. A major 2 year pilot project was carried out on one of the country's most notorious routes, the R66 north of Durban, which significantly reduced the number of serious accidents and road deaths on the busy highway.

In Australia, the use of Astucia smart road studs is providing better safety for pedestrians at crossings on one of the busiest east – west arterial routes across the Australian state of Victoria/ The Princes Highway between Colac and Geelong virtually dissects the town of Winchelsea and local residents including school children have to cross this road daily.

Astucia's 'smart' solar-powered road markings have proved a significant success in easing traffic congestion on Holland's most crowded motorways, by allowing the Dutch Ministry of Transport to increase the capacity of the roads, by opening the hard shoulder as an extra lane during the rush hour. Dynamic Lane Markings indicate when the hard shoulder is open for use as an additional 'plus-lane'.