Swedish research firm Visual Guidance Systems Scandinavia AB (VGS) developed a new road lighting system concept based around OLED luminaires. The basic idea is that the lamps come in different shapes (enabled by OLED area-lighting panel designs) that signals information processes to support drivers - so a lamp above a crossroad or a pedestrian crossing will signal the object beneath it:
VGS sent us an article showcasing this new concept - with lot's of examples and discussions how this compares with current road luminaries and advantages in safety and traffic management. You can download the article in the link below.
Comments
...given that the author of that article has already filed a patent for this idea 10 years ago without any reference to OLEDs I would also not exactly say that this is a new idea ;)
To me this seems to be a very strange idea at best.
First of all this seems to go against the basic idea of street lighting. Street lighting is usually designed in a way that the drivers do not look directly at the light luminaire but keep their eyes on the road. So using the shape of the luminaire to signal something to the driver is somewhat counter-intuitive in most cases.
Second, the current design of road lighting is the way it is because the idea is to get light on the road in such a way as to produce the least possible glare to drivers and the least possible light pollution to the surrounding of the road. This too would seem to be counterdicted by most of the ideas in this article.
And finally: I do not see why any of the examples provided in the article would require OLEDs. Basically all of this could be done with any of the current light source be it incandescent or LED.
The one point where I believe this might work are road barriers, but here reflectors usually do the job just as well and where this is not the case warning lights are already used. Again I do not see where OLEDs would be required here.