Driving is fun. & more fun is going on long drives. The National Highway network provides this opportunity to people in India. Some drive on it for fun and many goods carrying vehicles do it for business. With more number of people buying cars for self or rental, taking cars out for vacation with family and friends has now become a sort of tradition.
However, with more number of vehicles on roads and inclination to send goods by cargo on the rise, the risk for drivers also increase exponentially. What increases the risk is the speed pattern of different vehicles & drivers sometimes not being able to cope with it leading to accidents.
Take for instance – Ankit who was taking his family from Mumbai to Jaipur for a vacation. Apart from the challenge of lane cutting and unexpected overtakes from different vehicles, another problem he faced was about goods carrying trucks not adhering to lane discipline.
In addition to that, the slow speed and the more slower pickup of trucks sometimes dampen the spirit of even the best of car drivers.
To best this problem, Germany has come out with a great concept of electric highway further referred to as eHighway. This is a pilot project from Siemens and expected to be a big hit going ahead.
The German government also supports this initiative. The specially designed electric ( or rather hybrid) vehicles will be used to travel on this eHighway.
The power supplying cables will be on the top of lane, so mainly lane specific. The top of vehicles will be fitted with an equipment which will draw power from overhead cables to drive the vehicles. In addition to that, they will have sensors which will be able to detect whether power lines will be available or not. So, incase overhead power cables are not available, these vehicles will switch to their traditional source of fuel.
The advantages of the above concept are many. First is saving non renewable energy. In addition to saving fuel, it will also maintain a lane discipline because the overhead wires will be lane specific.
Considering the lane indiscipline in India, this concept of eHighway will be a huge necessity going ahead. If more commercial vehicles move on the above pattern in India, the drivers in India can surely expect a safe and better driving experience.
