Sovitec offers its Varilux Special and Varilux Color mixtures in 20kg resealable plastic buckets
A novel solution based on a leading road marking manufacturer’s proven marking technology is keeping elderly residents safe in a French residential development. Guy Woodford reports on this and other major road marking products and their applications
By 2050, it is estimated that 45% of1116 European Union citizens will be over 60. Many authorities have been working to develop and implement safety standards that will ensure enhanced mobility for their local elderly population. As part of their implementation, some authorities in Europe have started to install prefabricated tactile warning mats at locations where there is a particular risk for the visually impaired, such as road crossings, street corners, station platforms and stairs.
Pierre de Provence, a new 67-home elderly residential development in Le Rouret, a town of 3,800 people halfway between the southern French cities of Cannes and Nice, is an example of a community that is using warning mats to enhance mobility for their senior residents. Opened in 2012, the development’s owners chose1659 Degaroute-based MMA cold plastic mats from 4009 Evonik Industries due to, what Evonik says, are their optimal features and safety benefits.
In addition to visual aesthetics and walkable convenience being important factors in the planning process, the development’s top priority was to ensure the safety of its elderly residents. By implementing a routing system using tactile warning mats based on Degaroute cold plastic MMA, the developers are not only said to have created a safer environment for the visually impaired members of the community, but also met the stringent standards set by the Le Rouret authorities. The local authorities stressed that the material of the warning mats had to maintain colour and brightness under all weather and environmental conditions, be easy to clean and have functional characteristics equivalent to the adjacent substrate materials by providing skid-resistant properties. Evonik says its client also sought a cream-colored product, which could be optimally integrated with the stone walls of the buildings.
The walking indicators installed throughout Pierre de Provence measured 41.4cm x 60cm in size and comprised a mixture containing Degaroute-based cold plastic MMA and mineral filler. The formulation of these tactile warning mats is said by Evonik to be a key factor for extending their service life, while also improving their skid resistance and enhancing their aesthetic appeal. The filler, said to give the mats their natural mineral appearance, is incorporated to maintain the same consistency throughout the warning mats, guaranteeing long-term durability when it comes to wear, adhesion, and colour retention. The regulations governing the shape and distribution of the mat studs vary widely throughout Europe, with those in France corresponding to NFP 98-351 standard. The plates were applied at an ambient temperature between 10°C and 30°C, using a Degaroute-based MMA adhesive to ensure optimal durability and adhesion to the substrate. The fast cure of the adhesive is said by Evonik to have allowed for the sidewalk to be opened just 30 minutes after laying the mats.
Despite the overall number of road traffic accident fatalities falling across Europe in the past ten years, the number of accidents and fatalities from accidents in urban areas has increased dramatically over the decade.
Over a number of years,1279 Sovitec says it has been developing a range of products which can improve the quality and durability of large road markings in urban areas, resulting in its new Varilux glass beads and glass grains selection These glass grains come from recycled glass which is crushed and then sieved and treated for a state-of-the-art adhesion on the road products.
Many urban roads, say Sovitec, are not well illuminated. Even when they are, the globally renowned firm claims there is a tendency to turn street lighting off to reduce electricity consumption and pollution.
Sovitec’s Varilux Special mixture is said to increase night visibility of existing white road marking strips thanks to its glass beads and grains, while Varilux Color, also made up of a selection of glass grains, is said to be an ideal anti-skid solution.
Said to be a cost-effective urban road marking solution, Varilux can be used with the majority of road products in about all urban marking conditions. For better and easier urban road applications, Sovitec offers its Varilux glass beads and glass grain mixtures in 20kg resealable plastic buckets.
In July 2013 in Brest, north-west France, the giant oval logo of Océanopolis Brest, a local ocean discovery park, was applied on the harbour roundabout. Applied by the Urban Community, Brest Mëtropole Océane, the logo’s blue fish (7.28m x 6,79m), Océanopolis letters (11.52m x 1.9m) and yellow star (1.18m x 1.36m) were all applied in PREMARK from2447 Geveko Materials’ preformed thermoplastic road marking, and the logo’s white marked area was done in waterborne paint. Designed by architect Jacques Rougerie and opened in 1990, Océanopolis Brest is divided into three pavilions corresponding to three different environments: temperate, polar and tropical. 10,000 marine animals and 1,000 different kinds of marine plants can be found at the site.
Elsewhere in France, the black and yellow warning line in PREMARK is guiding visitors safely around Autopia at Disneyland Paris.
Geveko say that swift application of PREMARK’s black and yellow warning line is possible with a gas burner, a broom and primer, if you are applying on non-bituminous surfaces. Due to the glued PREMARK Easy backside, the black and yellow pieces hang together, and the lines can be easily laid out.
173 Borum has supplied one of its BM CA 250-2 for airless cold paint application line marking machines to MCE, part of the ASML Group, for use in their construction of a new airport in Mauritania, west Africa.
Before using the line marking machine, two MCE operators and an MCE engineer attended a one-week training course run by Borum.
The Danish firm says its user-friendly line marking machines have a robust construction for endurance and efficiency, while also offering second to none operational reliability and easy service and maintenance.
Borum says there has been an increase in demand for line marking machines for airports. As a result, the company was exhibiting at this month’s InterAirport exhibition in Munich, Germany.
By purchasing the PROMAX CF03TM 12tonnes/hour multiple colour road marking manufacturing plant, CK29, a firm owned by Mike Batterson based in the US state of Texas, is said to be prepared for meeting coming demands for high quality thermoplastic road marking. Operating the plant out of a new state-of-the-art road marking production factory, said to be managing efficiency, environment, precision and design all in one, Batterson and his team are demonstrating a strong commitment to running a business in an environmentally responsible manner, while, at the same time, being a good neighbour in the local community. The PROMAX plant used by CK29 includes a row of filterings collecting different coloured dust particles and recycling them to the specific batches.
Not only is PROMAX supplying a road marking manufacturing plant to CK29, it is also providing a full chemical recipe service in close corporation with the firm’s laboratory staff. In this way, Batterson is already said by PROMAX to be keeping his thermoplastic product competitive on performance.
“One of the pleasures in working with Batterson on this project was that he is a plant owner who does not cut corners,” said PROMAX project manager Steffen Jensen. “ Starting with the location [for the CK29 factory] he chose, the preparation he undertook, the equipment he specified, the installation of that equipment, and ending with a successful start-up of production, Batterson had a vision and he and his team made it happen.”
The Austrian Road Safety Board(KfV) has noted that despite a decline in national road accidents over the past year, the number of accidents involving pedestrians on zebra crossings remains almost constant, accounting for around 30% of all accidents, many of them fatal.
To tackle the problem, the road authority in Graz, Austria’s second largest city with a population of 300,000, has spent the last two years testing alternative zebra crossing road markings under real traffic conditions. Over many years, the city’s road authority had commissioned the application of a coldplastic road marking with a spatula. Stripers had the uncomfortable task of working on their knees when spreading the coldplastic over the road surface. When the city’s road maintenance department assessed the stripings only a few weeks after their application, they are often said to have found the markings had little brilliance and poor retroreflectivity.
In the course of tests at 21 different intersections in Graz’s city centre, novel reflective337 Swarco SOLIDPLUS glass beads were used. The SOLIDPLUS beads are said by Swarco to be characterised by particularly high retroreflectivity and durability over longer periods. A specialty of these glass beads, says Swarco, is that a significant increase of anti-skid material does not negatively affect the night-time visibility of the striping.
The Graz tests resulted in the development of a novel marking material into which the SOLIDPLUS beads are embedded, a so-called roll plastic. The roll plastic material has the advantage that its coarse fillers enhance the skid resistance on a long-term basis. In addition, the application method (spreading with a roller - more comfortable for the stripers) creates a rough structure on the striping’s surface, said to contribute to increased night-time visibility.
The roll plastic and the specific coldplastic that was previously used and applied with a trowel were tested with various gradings of SOLIDPLUS glass beads (100 to 850µ) and with different fractions of anti-skid aggregates (30-50%). Special emphasis was put on the comparison with standard glass beads and aggregate mixes. Swarco says measurements over the two-year testing period showed that a marking system consisting of roll plastic and its SOLIDPLUS 100 212-850 T18 M35 glass beads led to a considerably better night-time visibility and grip, contributing to an increase in traffic safety.
A further conclusion from the tests is that SOLIDPLUS’s higher ratio of anti-skid aggregates (35% instead of the usual 20%) does not have a negative influence on the degree of soiling of the marking.
The special durability and performance of this form of marking is said to show particularly well where the zebra crossing markings are subject to shearing forces caused by turning vehicles. At the test locations in Graz, where the SOLIDPLUS markings have been subjected to traffic load for two years, the retroreflectivity values of the markings are said to still be on a level that conventional beads only reach in their early post-application period.
Martin Stampfl, director of Street Maintenance Region South at Holding Graz, which is responsible for Graz city road maintenance, is pleased with the results of the study. “In view of the daily urban traffic we are very content with the test results. The measurements show that the new system with improved anti-skid properties contributes to increased traffic safety even two years after installation by providing better visibility of the zebra crossing, especially at night. At the same time, the simplified application method of the marking system makes life a lot easier for our road marking team.”
Concerns over UK standards
UK-based road marking services company Quality Marking Services (QMS) has voiced its concerns about the standard of British road markings, in response to the Government revealing plans to test driverless cars on public roads by the end of 2013.
A company spokesperson said, “Internet giant1224 Google has been at the forefront of the technology but now many leading car makers including 2796 Mercedes, 2728 Toyota, 3423 Ford, 6336 Audi and 2394 Volvo are currently developing their own systems, which rely largely on a combination of GPS, cameras, radar and ultrasonic sensors.
“However, the visual sensors and cameras rely on having good visible road markings and signs, especially at night. We will have to wait and see how effective these systems are on British roads as much of the network according to the RSMA’s (5149 Road Safety Markings Association) recent survey is well below the specified standard.
“If driverless vehicles are to become a common sight on the UK’s highway network then government, councils and highway organisations will need to invest in the maintenance of highway line marking on Britain’s roads, something that has been sadly lacking during the last decade or so.”
Based in south-west England, QMS also offers services around anti-skid surfacing, internal markings and resin bound and resin bonded surfacing to private individuals and corporate clients throughout Europe.
Ennis-Flint hit the Silk Road
Ennis-Flint (the new name for1394 Ennis Prismo in Europe, Middle East and Africa) recently laid over 20,000m² of thermoplastic white lining to stretches of the Silk Road through Kazakhstan.
The deployed Crystalex 55TC is one of Ennis-Flint’s many innovative products designed to perform in the kind of extreme temperatures and on the type of dirty and sandy roads associated with the Kazakhstan stretch of the Silk Road, an iconic highway stretching more than 6,435kms between China and Europe.
The route was initially used to trade Chinese silk in 200BC.
Further Crystalex 55TC white lining is said by Ennis-Flint to be earmarked for use on other sections of the Silk Road.
Potters-Damar business allies
7538 Potters Industries, a leading global producer of engineered glass bead products, and New Zealand’s 7539 Damar Industries, a manufacturer of paints, coatings, chemicals, and aerosol products, have announced a joint business alliance for the supply of road marking products for the Australian market.
Predominantly used for highway safety markings, Potters glass beads provide the light-reflective lane markings found on highways around the world. Meanwhile, Damar has a strong focus on the compliance-managed supply of road marking products and produces a wide variety of coatings used in the timber, construction, and paper industries.
“Potters is proud to be a part of this alliance,” said David Rice, general manager of Potters’ Asia/Pacific region. “We recognise that leveraging the skills of both companies will deliver a greatly enhanced package for the Australian road marking industry, inclusive of a ‘one-stop shop’ for road marking supplies, commitment to cooperative R&D, and the ease of seamless electronic ordering, all of which will benefit both our existing and prospective customers.”
By 2050, it is estimated that 45% of
Pierre de Provence, a new 67-home elderly residential development in Le Rouret, a town of 3,800 people halfway between the southern French cities of Cannes and Nice, is an example of a community that is using warning mats to enhance mobility for their senior residents. Opened in 2012, the development’s owners chose
In addition to visual aesthetics and walkable convenience being important factors in the planning process, the development’s top priority was to ensure the safety of its elderly residents. By implementing a routing system using tactile warning mats based on Degaroute cold plastic MMA, the developers are not only said to have created a safer environment for the visually impaired members of the community, but also met the stringent standards set by the Le Rouret authorities. The local authorities stressed that the material of the warning mats had to maintain colour and brightness under all weather and environmental conditions, be easy to clean and have functional characteristics equivalent to the adjacent substrate materials by providing skid-resistant properties. Evonik says its client also sought a cream-colored product, which could be optimally integrated with the stone walls of the buildings.
The walking indicators installed throughout Pierre de Provence measured 41.4cm x 60cm in size and comprised a mixture containing Degaroute-based cold plastic MMA and mineral filler. The formulation of these tactile warning mats is said by Evonik to be a key factor for extending their service life, while also improving their skid resistance and enhancing their aesthetic appeal. The filler, said to give the mats their natural mineral appearance, is incorporated to maintain the same consistency throughout the warning mats, guaranteeing long-term durability when it comes to wear, adhesion, and colour retention. The regulations governing the shape and distribution of the mat studs vary widely throughout Europe, with those in France corresponding to NFP 98-351 standard. The plates were applied at an ambient temperature between 10°C and 30°C, using a Degaroute-based MMA adhesive to ensure optimal durability and adhesion to the substrate. The fast cure of the adhesive is said by Evonik to have allowed for the sidewalk to be opened just 30 minutes after laying the mats.
Despite the overall number of road traffic accident fatalities falling across Europe in the past ten years, the number of accidents and fatalities from accidents in urban areas has increased dramatically over the decade.
Over a number of years,
Many urban roads, say Sovitec, are not well illuminated. Even when they are, the globally renowned firm claims there is a tendency to turn street lighting off to reduce electricity consumption and pollution.
Sovitec’s Varilux Special mixture is said to increase night visibility of existing white road marking strips thanks to its glass beads and grains, while Varilux Color, also made up of a selection of glass grains, is said to be an ideal anti-skid solution.
Said to be a cost-effective urban road marking solution, Varilux can be used with the majority of road products in about all urban marking conditions. For better and easier urban road applications, Sovitec offers its Varilux glass beads and glass grain mixtures in 20kg resealable plastic buckets.
In July 2013 in Brest, north-west France, the giant oval logo of Océanopolis Brest, a local ocean discovery park, was applied on the harbour roundabout. Applied by the Urban Community, Brest Mëtropole Océane, the logo’s blue fish (7.28m x 6,79m), Océanopolis letters (11.52m x 1.9m) and yellow star (1.18m x 1.36m) were all applied in PREMARK from
Elsewhere in France, the black and yellow warning line in PREMARK is guiding visitors safely around Autopia at Disneyland Paris.
Geveko say that swift application of PREMARK’s black and yellow warning line is possible with a gas burner, a broom and primer, if you are applying on non-bituminous surfaces. Due to the glued PREMARK Easy backside, the black and yellow pieces hang together, and the lines can be easily laid out.
Before using the line marking machine, two MCE operators and an MCE engineer attended a one-week training course run by Borum.
The Danish firm says its user-friendly line marking machines have a robust construction for endurance and efficiency, while also offering second to none operational reliability and easy service and maintenance.
Borum says there has been an increase in demand for line marking machines for airports. As a result, the company was exhibiting at this month’s InterAirport exhibition in Munich, Germany.
By purchasing the PROMAX CF03TM 12tonnes/hour multiple colour road marking manufacturing plant, CK29, a firm owned by Mike Batterson based in the US state of Texas, is said to be prepared for meeting coming demands for high quality thermoplastic road marking. Operating the plant out of a new state-of-the-art road marking production factory, said to be managing efficiency, environment, precision and design all in one, Batterson and his team are demonstrating a strong commitment to running a business in an environmentally responsible manner, while, at the same time, being a good neighbour in the local community. The PROMAX plant used by CK29 includes a row of filterings collecting different coloured dust particles and recycling them to the specific batches.
Not only is PROMAX supplying a road marking manufacturing plant to CK29, it is also providing a full chemical recipe service in close corporation with the firm’s laboratory staff. In this way, Batterson is already said by PROMAX to be keeping his thermoplastic product competitive on performance.
“One of the pleasures in working with Batterson on this project was that he is a plant owner who does not cut corners,” said PROMAX project manager Steffen Jensen. “ Starting with the location [for the CK29 factory] he chose, the preparation he undertook, the equipment he specified, the installation of that equipment, and ending with a successful start-up of production, Batterson had a vision and he and his team made it happen.”
The Austrian Road Safety Board(KfV) has noted that despite a decline in national road accidents over the past year, the number of accidents involving pedestrians on zebra crossings remains almost constant, accounting for around 30% of all accidents, many of them fatal.
To tackle the problem, the road authority in Graz, Austria’s second largest city with a population of 300,000, has spent the last two years testing alternative zebra crossing road markings under real traffic conditions. Over many years, the city’s road authority had commissioned the application of a coldplastic road marking with a spatula. Stripers had the uncomfortable task of working on their knees when spreading the coldplastic over the road surface. When the city’s road maintenance department assessed the stripings only a few weeks after their application, they are often said to have found the markings had little brilliance and poor retroreflectivity.
In the course of tests at 21 different intersections in Graz’s city centre, novel reflective
The Graz tests resulted in the development of a novel marking material into which the SOLIDPLUS beads are embedded, a so-called roll plastic. The roll plastic material has the advantage that its coarse fillers enhance the skid resistance on a long-term basis. In addition, the application method (spreading with a roller - more comfortable for the stripers) creates a rough structure on the striping’s surface, said to contribute to increased night-time visibility.
The roll plastic and the specific coldplastic that was previously used and applied with a trowel were tested with various gradings of SOLIDPLUS glass beads (100 to 850µ) and with different fractions of anti-skid aggregates (30-50%). Special emphasis was put on the comparison with standard glass beads and aggregate mixes. Swarco says measurements over the two-year testing period showed that a marking system consisting of roll plastic and its SOLIDPLUS 100 212-850 T18 M35 glass beads led to a considerably better night-time visibility and grip, contributing to an increase in traffic safety.
A further conclusion from the tests is that SOLIDPLUS’s higher ratio of anti-skid aggregates (35% instead of the usual 20%) does not have a negative influence on the degree of soiling of the marking.
The special durability and performance of this form of marking is said to show particularly well where the zebra crossing markings are subject to shearing forces caused by turning vehicles. At the test locations in Graz, where the SOLIDPLUS markings have been subjected to traffic load for two years, the retroreflectivity values of the markings are said to still be on a level that conventional beads only reach in their early post-application period.
Martin Stampfl, director of Street Maintenance Region South at Holding Graz, which is responsible for Graz city road maintenance, is pleased with the results of the study. “In view of the daily urban traffic we are very content with the test results. The measurements show that the new system with improved anti-skid properties contributes to increased traffic safety even two years after installation by providing better visibility of the zebra crossing, especially at night. At the same time, the simplified application method of the marking system makes life a lot easier for our road marking team.”
Concerns over UK standards
UK-based road marking services company Quality Marking Services (QMS) has voiced its concerns about the standard of British road markings, in response to the Government revealing plans to test driverless cars on public roads by the end of 2013.
A company spokesperson said, “Internet giant
“However, the visual sensors and cameras rely on having good visible road markings and signs, especially at night. We will have to wait and see how effective these systems are on British roads as much of the network according to the RSMA’s (
“If driverless vehicles are to become a common sight on the UK’s highway network then government, councils and highway organisations will need to invest in the maintenance of highway line marking on Britain’s roads, something that has been sadly lacking during the last decade or so.”
Based in south-west England, QMS also offers services around anti-skid surfacing, internal markings and resin bound and resin bonded surfacing to private individuals and corporate clients throughout Europe.
Ennis-Flint hit the Silk Road
Ennis-Flint (the new name for
The deployed Crystalex 55TC is one of Ennis-Flint’s many innovative products designed to perform in the kind of extreme temperatures and on the type of dirty and sandy roads associated with the Kazakhstan stretch of the Silk Road, an iconic highway stretching more than 6,435kms between China and Europe.
The route was initially used to trade Chinese silk in 200BC.
Further Crystalex 55TC white lining is said by Ennis-Flint to be earmarked for use on other sections of the Silk Road.
Potters-Damar business allies
Predominantly used for highway safety markings, Potters glass beads provide the light-reflective lane markings found on highways around the world. Meanwhile, Damar has a strong focus on the compliance-managed supply of road marking products and produces a wide variety of coatings used in the timber, construction, and paper industries.
“Potters is proud to be a part of this alliance,” said David Rice, general manager of Potters’ Asia/Pacific region. “We recognise that leveraging the skills of both companies will deliver a greatly enhanced package for the Australian road marking industry, inclusive of a ‘one-stop shop’ for road marking supplies, commitment to cooperative R&D, and the ease of seamless electronic ordering, all of which will benefit both our existing and prospective customers.”
