The A4226, local known as The Five Mile Lane is a busy rural narrow and bendy commuter route between Barry, Cardiff International Airport the A48 and the M4 Motorway.  Against a background of an unacceptably high accident record The Vale of Glamorgan Council has undertaken a number of measures to improve road  safety these have included the imposition of  a 40mph speed limit, deployment of a mobile speed camera and more recently a permanent speed camera, additional road markings, increased signage and resurfacing with high skid resistance material.

It was also clear from a complete analysis of all accidents occurring along the A4226 carried out by Vale of Glamorgan Council that an increasing number of the accidents were taking place at night time suggesting that drivers were failing to take account of the limited view ahead, of some of the notorious bends in the road, provided by conventional vehicle headlight beams.

The installation initially carried out by Astucia in July 2002 comprised of almost 200 SolarLite™ D series Intelligent Road Studs (IRS)  providing delineation for  the centre line with white studs and on the most severe of bends the carriageway edges are enhanced with red studs.

The positioning of the SolarLite studs has been carefully designed to provide drivers with advanced indication of the nature of the road layout ahead.

Following the success of the initial installation the location has been enhanced further by updating the installation with the Astucia SolarLite™ F Series flush mounted type stud following approval of their use by the Welsh Assembly.

 ^{_{Click image to enlarge}}

The SolarLite series IRS from Astucia (UK) Ltd., with its built in solar powered Light Emitting Diode (LED) automatically illuminates from dusk to dawn and is visible for up to ten times further than the traditional retro-reflective passive road stud where with vehicle headlamps, even in best condition, will only provide up to 90 metres visibility; by contrast, the Astucia IRS can be seen up to 1000 metres away regardless of the headlight beam.

At 100 km/h (62 mph) a visible distance of 90 m only represents a reaction time of 3.2 seconds, which is not enough time to properly judge certain road hazards such as the radius of a bend. With the increased visibility of the SolarLite road stud this reaction time is increased to over 30 seconds.

Ian Johnson, senior traffic officer for Vale of Glamorgan  Council advised: “We are continually striving to reduce the number of accidents on our roads. We are therefore highly pleased that the installation of the Astucia intelligent road studs along with the other safety measures that we have put in place have significantly reduced the number of accidents on this busy stretch of road.”

In the three years since the initial installation of the Astucia SolarLite road studs and the other safety measures implemented there has been a 72% reduction in accidents on this stretch of road when compared with the prior three years.

 ^{_{Click image to enlarge}}

Ian Thomas, key account manager for Astucia, advises: “The intelligent road studs from Astucia are proven to reduce accidents by providing information to drivers about the road ahead directly in their natural field of vision especially in areas where traditional street lighting is neither practical or cost effective. Astucia is committed to keeping traffic moving and saving lives.”