Combining science, design, and consumer behaviour, Innovia creates a smart road stud to improve road safety.

The Ray is a charitable organisation that aims to make highways safer, smarter, and more sustainable, by pioneering innovations in road infrastructure. We initially worked with The Ray to help them work out which innovations to pioneer. Which innovations were both feasible to pilot on their highway proving ground and could be scaled up across the wider road network? Which innovations were truly aligned with The Ray’s sustainability goals? And how could The Ray develop these innovations for application?

One of the more novel and exciting ideas we identified was the smart road stud and, in a second piece of work, we designed, prototyped, programmed, and tested it. While standard, reflective road studs only signal the edge of the road, The Ray’s new smart stud can sense various dangers and communicate critical information to drivers in real time – for example by changing colour or flashing to indicate ice, fog, an accident, or an erratic driver on the road ahead.

This road-stud technology will save lives. Additionally, it reduces the data gap between autonomous and traditional cars and can be applied to many different types of road, improving road safety nationwide. This potential for social good has been recognized by the World Changing Ideas Awards programme, which rewards concepts and products that make the world better.