With the ever expanding road network, growth in traffic density along with mileage per car rising, energy consumption for road lighting on the rise, together with the influx of tourism, the signage on Sri Lanka’s road network has long been a major contributor to the safety of motorists.
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| One of the boards |
According to Suren Rajanathan, Vice President of 3M Sri Lanka whose products span numerous markets from consumer and medical through to mining, telecommunication, industrial and safety products’ the company is working closely with the project partners of Colombo Municipal Council whose primary tasks are making the Colombo city safe, clean and beautiful in bringing world class standards.
“Primarily by bringing world class standards to traffic signs, street name boards, gantry signs, raised pavement markers (cat’s eyes) on the roads, etc, 3M has played a major role by providing reflective sheeting thereby bringing in more visibility to signage boards, etc in the city,” he told the Business Times.
He added that for an example during the day, sunlight allows most signage materials to provide adequate sign visibility. “However, with the absence of natural light at night, drivers rely entirely on a sign’s visibility from alternate light sources, such as headlights, where a headlight of a motor vehicle illuminating a traffic sign and returning that light back to the driver. This is called retroreflective lighting,” he explained.
He said that the drivers more than ever need clear, conspicuous and legible signage to improve driver safety and this is especially important when driving at night as conditions are generally acknowledged as more difficult and harder to navigate. “Consider a major highway where you have signage on the left and right hand side of the road as well as on overhead bridges and gantries. The light emitted from a car headlight at low beam will give almost 100% luminance to the sign on the left hand side of the road as car headlights are directed more to the left hand side in order to cover the verge and not shine into the eyes of oncoming traffic,” he said, explaining that the sign on the right hand side of the road however will only get 22% of that light.
A direct overhead gantry sign receives only 17% and a gantry sign overhead and to the right it is typically as low as 14%. Therefore, Mr. Rajanathan reiterated that sign placement and the type retroreflective sheeting used can have a profound effect on the road’s level of safety.
He added that now the gantry signs in the Colombo city are more reflective and that this makes their drive safer. “It is a silent effort in the part 3M as we have brought in global technology to add value to road safety standards and to bring them to international norms,” he explained. He said that with the tourism boom, it’s important that Colombo is seen as a world class city.
He noted that there’s a great deal of awareness of the aging population that we have in this country and the impact on services such as health. The aging population is also road users and their needs in navigating the roads need to be understood in order to improve safety. Mr. Rajanathan pointed out that motorists are constantly bombarded with all types of signage - traffic and commercial, especially in urban areas. “The use of reflective films in signage assists in detecting signage earlier and at greater distances which allows more reaction time for the driver,” he added.
3M is a global diversified technology company with operations in over 60 countries worldwide. 3M’s products span numerous market areas from consumer and medical through to mining, industrial and safety products. |
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