Glow in the dark walking trail opens to the public in Singapore

Remember those glow-in-the-dark roads that began cropping up a few years ago? One in Singapore just opened to the public, and it aims to make the length of space safer for people to use at night. Whereas ordinary road lights are expensive and result in light pollution, glow-in-the-dark materials are energized by the sun during the day and then glow softly at night, improving the quality of life for people who live and work nearby.

The new glow-in-the-dark section of the Rail Corridor in Singapore was first detailed last year; it is composed of four different materials with the goal being to determine which of them is most suitable for the trail. The overall testing section is 100 meters long and features the following materials: a porous concrete, grass/gravel, a finer texture of gravel, and strontium aluminate green minerals, which glow softly at night.

These minerals absorb light throughout the day, and then provide it back at night with a gentle illumination. Now that the testing section is open, anyone can go check it out and see the glowing section for themselves. The material will be evaluated not only on its potential increase of safety in the region, but also whether it is of adequate durability for a stretch of trail like this.

This isn't the first time we've seen this type of material tested on roads and trails. Such technology has made its way into the Netherlands on multiple occasions, in one case being used on a smart highway of sorts and the second time on a bike path. Response to these sorts of lighting arrangements are largely favorable, though no doubt their use is limited in certain scenarios.

Primarily, such materials eliminate the need to use electricity to illuminate a particular area; it also decreases how much artificial light is present in any given region at night, helping tone down light pollution. Such steps will decrease a city's energy needs and help restore the night sky to better visibility, all the while giving residents a sort of fantasy-world environment where the very ground glows.

SOURCE: Strait Times