- [Illustrator] You
may not often think it, but roads are some of
the most complex pieces of infrastructure that
mankind can produce. And the methods of producing
them are equal parts ingenious and surprisingly mesmerizing to see. From building roads across desserts, to drones carrying out pothole repairs. Let's take a look at some
mind-blowing road technologies you probably never considered. (upbeat music) Tiger Stone. Have you ever found satisfaction in the perfect tessellation
of brick road paving? If so, I have the perfect machine for you. It may look like a giant printer, but this is the Tiger Stone Road Paver. It's a slow moving, electric-powered paver
that crawls along the road, laying a perfectly-assembled
trail of bricks behind it. Workers on the machine's
galley take the bricks from the holding hoppers
on top and place them onto the moving shear plate, arranging them into the desired pattern. This plate then feeds
the interlocking bands of bricks downwards at a speed the workers
can easily keep up with. Gravity helps to secure
the pattern in place before it's gently laid
onto the road surface as the machine rolls forwards. In contrast to traditional practices which rely on workers placing each brick onto the road by hand, this method saves time, effort, and back pain for all involved. At almost 20 feet wide, this stony printer has
the capacity to lay just under 3,300 square-feet of paving per day when manned by just two people. But it can also be adjusted
to print-pave smaller roads, in case you're strapped
for available land. Why can't my printer print roads? (peaceful guitar music) Golden Gate Bridge Road Zipper. Rush hour might just be the ultimate bane of a motorist's existence. In built-up city areas like San Francisco, records show commuters can lose up to five days a year trapped in congestion. But as you probably imagined, there's a machine designed
to help with that. This is the Golden Gate Bridge
Barrier Transfer Machine, also nicknamed The Road Zipper, and you can see why. It's designed to change the
position of the concrete or steel lane dividers separating the two directions of traffic. Before rush hour, the road
zipper will shift the barriers to give drivers an extra
lane to help ease congestion in the busier direction. The vehicle uses an S shaped
inverted conveyor channel in its undercarriage, which is basically a
high-powered roller system that lifts the barrier
segments up and transfers them to a new position. It's an impressive task, considering there are 3,200 blocks making up the full moveable barrier over the 1.7 mile-long bridge, with each segment weighing 1,500 pounds. Now that's what you call
a heavy-duty zipper. (upbeat guitar music) Electreon Wireless Electric Roads. At this point, around 14
countries and over 20 cities around the world have proposed future bans on vehicles powered by fossil fuels. France, Norway, the UK, and
even China are all preparing to get from A to B without
their foot on the gas, but how will that be made possible? One option has been offered
by company Electreon, who specialize in Wireless Electric Roads. Already used in projects
in Tel Aviv and Sweden, this Israeli company has
a road design capable of wirelessly powering electric vehicles while they're driving. The execution of this
technology is achieved by integrating a narrow copper coil into existing asphalt roads, linked to the electric grid, and synced to installable
vehicle hardware. According to Electreon, the process of installing
one mile of this coil from start to finish can be
achieved in just a few days. A receiver under the
electric vehicle chassis, linked to Electreon's dynamic wireless power transfer system, allows the vehicle to
harness power wirelessly while it travels. In theory, this eliminates the need for bulky batteries, and providing the car only
drives on these types of roads, it can be powered indefinitely. If combined with a rechargeable battery for traveling off-the-grid, this could well be a viable solution to powering electric
vehicles in the future. Now this is the future
Scalextric kids prepared for. Nextrencher Trencher Disc. From wiring to drainage, a lot of stuff needs to
be excavated and buried when upgrading a road, and for that you need a
machine that can really punch through the asphalt. The Nextrencher Trencher Disc
D-80 is a high-powered tool that can cut through and
remove urban materials like concrete and asphalt to
a depth of almost three feet. Usually, excavation disks
used in trenching projects like this are exposed. But when you're trying to
keep fast traffic moving, the last thing you need is
for stones and bits of debris to go flying into oncoming vehicles. Instead, the Nextrencher
design encloses the entire top of the disk, meaning there's no disruption to traffic, and laborers can work safely alongside it. Debris is fed up through a conveyor belt or chain to an extractor which
then deposits the fragments on the side on the road. Its efficient design means
the disk trencher can cut around 330 feet an hour, depending on the surface at hand. And maybe a little longer
if someone falls underneath. (ambient music) Self-Repairing Cities Initiative. The world seems to be obsessed
with drones these days, and it can get a little exhausting, but there are actually some
incredible potential uses for drones that you'd
probably never expect, like repairing potholes. Researchers from the
University of Leeds have put forward their solution of using drones with 3D printing capabilities
to fill in potholes. Although it's still in its concept phase, this could prove to be the answer to on-demand pothole filing. The researchers have explained that, in theory, the drones would
be able to scan potholes on a closed road to get the
orientation of the indent. With that information, they can then use an
attached extruder machine to pour materials like asphalt, or tar into the hole in a specific pattern to give it a smooth finish. It all seems very promising, and I really hope the tech
is all it's cracked up to be. (ambient guitar music) ETI Roller Barrier. Traffic barriers and jersey
barriers may help you feel safe on the road, but anyone who's been in a collision with one will tell you
they're no fun to hit. But there is a safer way forward. Take a look at the ETI
Roller System developed in South Korea. This design does way more
than just preventing vehicles from diving off the road. These rollers are able
to convert a good deal of the impact energy
into rotational energy. This prevents the vehicle from
breaking through the barrier and instead redirects the
vehicle back onto the road. The rollers themselves are made from a material called
Ethylene Vinyl-Acetate, or EVA for short. EVA's rubber-like structure
and lightweight form means that the rollers aren't easily damaged, even when they're hit by heavy Vehicles like trucks and buses. Everything about the design helps to propel the vehicle forward, which is what traditional
crash barriers do, only not this efficiently, so if you ever find yourself
head-on with one of these, just roll with it. (upbeat music) Geocells. Building a road from scratch
can require much more than just slapping down a ton of asphalt. Depending on the terrain you may need to take soil erosion into account, and employ methods to prevent your hard-built
road crumbling apart. That's why some construction
companies use Geocells. These are made from
geosynthetic materials designed to be durable enough to
reinforce the soil bed to withstand up to 5,080
pounds of pressure per foot. The cellular design and base
component can be changed depending the application, meaning no matter what kind of soil the project is planned on, Geocells can help maintain
structural integrity. In this instance, a series
of stretched perforated cells are being used to prevent
base level erosion on a highway shoulder. But they can also be used
in extreme circumstances like stabilizing sand-based foundations across stretches of desert. It's pretty impressive, and just goes to show
that everyone benefits from a little support once
in a while, even roads. (peaceful piano music) Python 5000 Pothole Patcher. Potholes are the enemy of all road users, and are capable of turning
a completely normal road into an infuriating obstacle course. They're so reviled that back in 2011, the UK's Automobile Association joked about literally highlighting how sick they were of their
nation's plentiful potholes. To combat this scourge of the roads, the inventors at Superior
Roads Solutions have created the Python 5000 Pothole Patcher. Unlike traditional methods
of pothole patching which require a lot of manual labor, the Pothole Patcher is able
to fill and patch any hole with the operator comfortably
sat in the machine's cabin. The five ton hopper
located behind the cabin uses an exhaust circulation
system to keep hot asphalt hot, or warm up cold asphalt
to a working temperature of around 300 Fahrenheit. It's then fed through into a four foot extendable working arm at
the front of the cabin, then sprayed out of the arm's nozzle. The asphalt is then leveled
out by an attached rake, before being compacted into
the hole by the arm's roller for a smooth finish. What's more, Superior
Roads claim the Python 5000 is three times faster than a three-person
crew doing the same job. Suddenly it seems like we
might win the war on potholes, but we may have to bow down to our robotic pothole-fixing
overlords in the process. (peaceful guitar music) Power Curber 7700. Have you ever noticed
the long, unbroken lines of concrete barriers that
sometimes skirt stretches of the highway? Being as long and continuous as they are, you may have wondered how they
got there in the first place. They're actually made on-site by a method of called slip forming, where cement concrete is poured and molded by a continuously moving machine. When you combine that method with some additional mechanical ingenuity, you get the Power Curber 7700. It features a telescopic
frame which allows the machine to straddle the triangular
shape of two metal grids. Once in position, cement concrete
is fed by a conveyor belt into the forming house, where it is mechanically applied to the triangular metal frame. As the machine slowly moves along, cement concrete passes down
onto the frame and is smoothed, creating a seamless highway barrier wall. With the conveyor, tracks,
and straddle device, this machine can weigh in
at a colossal 80,000 pounds. But of course, the Power
Curber never lets its weight become a barrier to success. Gomaco. When it comes to the kings
of slip-forming machines, a company called Gomaco sits at the top. Their colossal units
provide different types of paving depending on the project, but can also be customized to fit the most
impossible-looking endeavors. What you see here is a
Gomaco GP3 Slip Form Paver. Designed to pave floor
coverings up to 30 feet wide. It works by placing a
measured supply of concrete in front of the paver, which is then spread,
shaped, and consolidated at a specific height. But Gomaco doesn't just produce one size fits all slip forming machines; just take a look at
the customized GP-2600, used in the creation of
Turkey's Batman Canal system. No, not that Batman. This four-track slip-former was designed with a sectional, trapezoidal mold which could be adjusted for
different slopes and depths. A work bridge behind the
paver was also installed, so workers could apply
a trowel finish by hand to the molded cement concrete. Despite the complexity, overall production topped
out at an impressive rate of 1,969 feet per day, which is just under half
the main span length of the Golden Gate bridge. Now that's how you pave
the way to success. (peaceful guitar music) Leeboy 8500. Relaying an asphalt road is a fairly common construction task, but what kind of machines can you employ to re-surface asphalt on your driveway? Get ready for the Leeboy 8500. This machine is part
of a specialized series of conveyor asphalt pavers that are some of the most efficient on the market. Asphalt pavers work by
transferring asphalt from the hopper to a heated auger via a conveyor belt. The auger will then
place a measured amount of the heated asphalt
in front of the screed, which is a fancy name for a
tool used to smooth materials. What makes the 8500 so practical is that it has a 15-foot-wide
screed footprint. The perfect size to drag
asphalt over surfaces like driveways for a clean finish. And with a seven and a half ton hopper, it's able to lay a lot
of asphalt in one go. Perfect for when the
perfectly reasonable urge to build a road seizes you
on a Saturday afternoon. (peaceful upbeat music) (upbeat music) Did any of these amazing road-building technologies surprise you? Let me know in the comments below, and thanks for watching. (upbeat music)
