Environmental Technologies and Eco-innovation in the Czech ...

3.8 | Saving power with roads
Research in energy consumption during road designing shows that roughly 16%
of the costs of construction consist in energy costs and nearly 12% of this energy is
consumed for road construction. The construction of an asphalt road has many
phases that include procuring materials, material adjustments, the production of
blends, transport, spreading and compacting. Energy can be saved in each of these
phases. The two main procedures leading to energy consumption reduction during
asphalt-covered road construction are the temperature required during production and
application and the modification process.
A significant tendency that is being more and more often applied in the Czech
Republic and responds to the need to reduce non-renewable resource consumption is
the recycling of road materials. During recycling, which stared in Europe in the 1980’s,
energy savings are obtained from the reduction in transport (materials from quarries,
blends, material removal). This reduces the need for fuels. Various products can be
recycled for use in roads, e.g. materials from old roads, excessive soil extracted
during road construction and other materials (industrial products, concrete from
demolished buildings, scrapped tyres, glass, residues after home waste combusting,
etc.).
3.9 | Technologies of traffic control in crisis situations
The national traffic data provision and control centre gathers and processes traffic
data on accidents, closed roads, the practicability of roads, weather, etc. Traffic
information is published on traffic data devices installed on highways and expressways,
jointly broadcasted by the Czech Broadcasting Corporation through the RDS-TMC 7
service for navigation devices, published at http://www.dopravniinfo.cz and provided
to other interested parties through a distribution interface. The highway network has
system of variable signs 8 , a meteorological system, 9 traffic line control 10 , systems
7 RDS-TMC – a traffic news channel which is part of digital information broadcasted by radios in short waves
8 system of variable signs – a system of electronic panels which are able to show currently required traffic signs
9 meteorological system – a system of sensors for monitoring the temperature and air relative humidity, precipitations, wind
speed and direction, etc.
10 line control – it serves for maintaining safe and fluent riding in a line track, the most frequently on a highway or expressway
where the surroundings is unimportant for the traffic on relevant roads