(ECNS) -- East China's Zhejiang province will open China's first "intelligent" super expressway by 2022, enabling increased safety and higher average traffic speeds of up to 120 kilometers per hour.
The six-lane, 161-km freeway linking Zhejiang's northern cities of Hangzhou, Shaoxing and Ningbo will be completed before the opening of the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou.
China's Road Traffic Safety Law sets speed limits on expressways at 120 km/h, but the average traffic speed is estimated at 90 km/h, according to Ren Zhong, deputy director of the Zhejiang Province Transportation Department.
The main idea is to build a comprehensive sensing system that links the driver, the vehicle and the road, providing monitoring and early warnings of hazards to maintain the safety of vehicles while increasing the speed by 20-30 percent, said Ren.
The expressway will be made of three layers: transparent concrete on the top, photovoltaic panels in the middle to generate electricity, and insulation on the bottom.
The expressway will also incorporate facilities to support the use of electric cars, including solar powered plug-in charging stations. In the long run, the goal is to allow drivers to recharge their cars using mobile wireless charging technology.
