Musical Roads: Design, Construction and Potential Economic and Safety Benefits
Musical Roads: Design, Construction and Potential Economic and Safety Benefits
Musical Roads: Design, Construction and Potential Economic and Safety Benefits
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There are more than 30 stretches of road in the world (mostly in Japan) that use rumble strips to create musical notes
as cars drive along them. This paper discusses the three main structural forms and construction methods used to
create the musical effect. Beyond their economic value as a tourist attraction, some ‘musical roads’ have been used in
dangerous stretches to discourage speeding, with the melody providing a warning or only being recognisable at a
safe speed.
1. Introduction sound produced by tyre contact, and the section length deter-
As a car travels, its tyres produce noise. After driving for a mines the sound duration (Liu and Xue, 2011). This is the
long time and under continuous noise, drivers are likely to most common form of musical roads.
develop auditory fatigue and become irritated, which creates
a hidden risk for driving safety. Therefore, the mechanism of The detailed procedure for producing pavement music with
sound produced by the friction between the tyres and pave- a groove machine is as follows.
ment should be understood, and the sound should be leveraged
in a positive way so that road surfaces produce sounds that (a) Based on the score, the target music is decomposed into
follow a certain pattern to form a pleasing musical melody. continuous tones of ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, …’.
Such a melody could regulate the mood of drivers, remind (b) The frequency and the duration of the corresponding
drivers to reduce their speed in zones with frequent accidents tone are calculated.
and thereby improve traffic safety. The detailed plan is to (c) Based on the durations of the various tones in step (b)
deploy a musical road on a specific road segment. and the vehicle speed, the road segment is divided into
continuous sections that represent different tones. Each
A musical road is composed of modified asphalt or concrete section has a specific tone produced by friction between
pavement into which a sequence of transverse grooves with a vehicle tyres and pavement as well as the tone duration.
unique pattern has been cut (Cho and Lee, 2007; Kaushik, (d) Based on the tone sequence in the score, grooves are
2015). When a vehicle crosses over these grooves, sound is pro- created on different sections of the musical road by way
duced by contact between the tyres and pavement cuttings. of the groove machine.
Micro-vibrations produced within the air pockets of the grooves
as vehicles travel are merged into a melodic sound (McLeod, The groove-based musical road method only considers two
2015; Schmitt, 2018). Such a special musical melody is able to be attributes (frequency and duration), which is insufficient to
perceived by people inside or outside the vehicle (Zhang, 2017). generate music that people can enjoy. Time-variant character-
istics of sound attributes are not considered.
2. Various forms of musical roads and
the music production principle
2.2 Raised pavement marker-based musical road
2.1 Cutting groove-based musical roads The raised pavement marker-based musical road method
As shown in Figure 1, the sound-production principle of can control the fundamental frequency, duration, strength and
cutting groove-based musical roads leverages the noise pro- timbre of the sound produced. It can also adjust these four
duced by the contact between the tyres and pavement. Grooves attributes against time to achieve a delicate depiction of varying
with various widths are deployed on pavement so that when an sound. As shown in Figure 2, the sound-production principle
automobile drives across them, the collisions between the tyres of raised pavement marker-based musical roads is as follows.
and these grooves produce sounds with varying frequencies, Contact between the tyres and physical structures on the pave-
creating a continuous melody. Using this method, the groove ment with periodical undulation produces sound with a funda-
width and spacing in the road section determine the pitch of mental frequency. Multiple undulating structures with different
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Transport Musical roads: design, construction and
potential economic and safety benefits
Zhou, Huang, Hu, Zhou and An
(a) Groove
Pavement
(b) (c)
Figure 1. Cutting groove-based musical roads: (a) elevation; (b) plan; (c) 3D view
Raised
(a) markers
Pavement
(b) (c)
Figure 2. Raised pavement marker-based musical road: (a) elevation; (b) plan; (c) 3D view
f (i ) = v/δ (i)
attributes, deployed based on the musical score, produce mul- sound is determined by the cycle of the undulating
tiple sounds with different attributes, and the combination pro- pavement structure. Assuming that the vehicle velocity v
duces a musical melody (Zhang, 2013). The physical attributes is constant, the time for a vehicle to pass a single
of periodical undulating pavement structures are controlled to undulating structure is T = δ/v, where δ is the length of a
change the fundamental frequency, duration, strength and single undulating structure. When a vehicle passes
timbre of the tone produced. The detailed method is as multiple undulating structures with identical lengths,
follows. sound with fundamental frequency f = 1/T is produced.
The fundamental frequencies of most tones are not fixed,
(a) Fundamental frequency: periodical contact between but rather are time-variant. As shown in Figure 3, the
vehicle tyres and undulating pavement structures produces length of a single undulating structure can be changed to
periodical sound. The fundamental frequency of the produce sound with a time-variant fundamental
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Transport Musical roads: design, construction and
potential economic and safety benefits
Zhou, Huang, Hu, Zhou and An
(a) (b)
Figure 4. Raised markers with different (a) height and (b) shapes
frequency. Given a sequence with N undulating structures curve can be generated from a note sequence in the score
and length δ(i) of the ith undulating structure, the by a fundamental frequency curve generation algorithm.
instantaneous fundamental frequency of sound produced (b) Based on the melody’s note duration and the vehicle
for a vehicle passing over the ith undulating structure is driving speed, the undulating structure’s sequence lengths
f (i) = v/δ(i). In actual operation, the length of the corresponding to each note are obtained. Based on the
undulating structure corresponding to the fundamental instantaneous fundamental frequency at the
frequency is v/f (t), where f (t) is the fundamental corresponding moment in the fundamental frequency
frequency curve at a particular moment t of vehicle curve, the length of each undulating structure in the
driving. For a given musical score, the fundamental sequence is obtained. The position of each undulating
frequency curve is obtained by way of a fundamental structure in the pavement is obtained by integrating the
frequency extraction algorithm, such as a damping lengths of all the preceding undulating structures.
system-based fundamental frequency control model (c) Based on the performance record of the actual musical
(Saitou et al., 2005). instrument, the sound strength curve and the frequency
(b) Sound duration: the time for a vehicle to pass a sequence spectrum envelope are calculated. The height and shape
of N undulating structures is the duration of sound of each undulating structure are set based on the same
produced by this undulating structure. method for the fundamental frequency curve.
(c) Sound strength: this is determined by the vibration
amplitude of the sound-producing entity. In this method,
the height of the undulating pavement structure is 2.3 Raised marking line-based musical road
proportional to the amplitude of the sound produced, As shown in Figure 5, raised marking line-based musical
as shown in Figure 4(a). The height of the undulating roads are constructed of multiple raised marking lines on the
structure is adjusted to achieve a continuous variation road pavement so that when a vehicle passes over, a rhythmic
of sound strength. vibration is generated, and a pleasing musical melody is created.
(d ) Timbre: timbre is determined by the shape of the Raised marking lines are constructed on an existing road
frequency spectrum envelope. As shown in Figure 4(b), surface without damaging the original structure of the pave-
the shape of the undulating pavement structure can be ment. They are easy to maintain and convenient for changing
altered to change the frequency spectrum envelope of the music. The construction time is flexible because they are not
sound produced and thus change the timbre. The sound constrained by road construction schedules. Construction only
frequency spectrum envelopes of undulating pavement requires a marking machine and the preparation of steel plates,
structures with various shapes are obtained by way of which makes construction fast and convenient (Hu et al., 2015).
existing acoustic methods, such as finite-element and
boundary-element methods. For a given instrument, the Construction includes the following steps.
frequency spectrum envelope is calculated from the
performance record. Then, the shape of the undulating (a) The score to be played by the musical road is
pavement structure closest to the frequency spectrum decomposed into a sequence of single notes.
envelope of the target musical instrument is obtained by (b) Based on the specified vehicle speed v and the note
an acoustic and iterative approximation method. frequency f for the main key in the score, the spacing
between two adjacent raised marking lines L is
Based on the above method, a corresponding undulating pave- calculated. The detailed formula is L (m) = v (m/s)/f (Hz).
ment structure is deployed for a given monophonic melody. In the formula, the spacing between two adjacent raised
The detailed procedure is given below. marking lines L is the sum of the width of one raised
marking line D and the pavement width between this
(a) The fundamental frequency curve is obtained by way of raised marking line and the next raised marking line W.
analysis of the performance record of this melody by the (c) Based on the spacing between two adjacent raised
instrument. Alternatively, the fundamental frequency marking lines L, the width of the raised marking line D
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Transport Musical roads: design, construction and
potential economic and safety benefits
Zhou, Huang, Hu, Zhou and An
Convex
(a) marking
Pavement
(b) (c)
Figure 5. Raised marking line-based musical road: (a) elevation; (b) plan; (c) 3D view
L
Pavement Raised marking
D W
(a) (b)
Figure 6. Deployment of raised marking lines: (a) low-pitch section; (b) high-pitch section
(0 < D < L) and the pavement width between two marking lines consists of C5 petroleum resin, plasticiser,
adjacent raised marking lines W are determined. As sand, titanium dioxide (TiO2), calcium carbonate
shown in Figure 6, the spacing between two adjacent (CaCO3), glass beads and additives. The proportion of
raised marking lines L determines the pitch, and the each component is listed in Table 1.
pavement width between two raised marking lines W
influences the volume of vibration. 3. Effect of musical road and proper
(d) Based on the note duration t, the musical road is divided deployment position
into multiple construction sections S. The length of A musical road can have multiple practical functions. First, it
each construction section is S (m) = v (m/s) t (s). can generate classical music, greetings and commercial adver-
In the formula, the note duration is t = (60/n) (note tisements and thus act as a unique resource for cultural propa-
duration/quarter note duration). Assuming that the gation, advertising and tourism. Additionally, musical roads
duration of a quarter note is one beat, there are n beats can effectively improve traffic safety. Previous research found
per minute. that pavement grooving helps in raising skid resistance, lower-
(e) For each construction section S in step (d), the ing breaking distances and raising hydroplaning speed, thereby
corresponding steel plates are prepared. Steel plates have lowering the risk of wet-weather accidents for both passenger
undulating structures corresponding to the cars and trucks (Anupam, 2011, Ong and Fwa, 2006a, 2006b).
aforementioned raised marking lines and the spacings As shown in Figure 7, when a driver travels a long distance
between multiple raised marking lines. on a straight highway, a road segment with a low speed limit
( f ) A steel plate is fixed at the outlet of the marking or a road segment with frequent accidents, specially designed
machine. The required raised marking lines on base musical roads can provide customised special safety assurances,
pavement are produced using a marking machine and such as ‘awakening’, ‘warning’, ‘low speed limit’, ‘drainage’
steel plates. The hot-melt coating material for the raised and ‘antiskid’ alerts. Contact between tyres and road surfaces
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Transport Musical roads: design, construction and
potential economic and safety benefits
Zhou, Huang, Hu, Zhou and An
Figure 7. Musical road patterns and deployment positions: (a) basic pattern; (b) safety warning at a dangerous turn; (c) crossroad safety
warning; (d) safety warning at median strip or before tunnel
Expressway ETC toll station Tunnel Long slope Multiple turns or Soft land segment Ramp, deceleration lane,
sharp turn or bridges and acceleration lane
with frequent culverts
accidents
Urban ETC toll station Tunnel Mountain road with multiple turns or Tourist attractions School
highway sharp turn with frequent accidents or town border
Urban roads Ramp, deceleration Tunnel Road segment Road segment Tourist attraction, Road segment at school or
lane and acceleration under overpass, with varied square busy commercial district;
lane of high-speed right before and speed limit or junction and
road segment after public roundabout where
transport station pedestrians and vehicles
converge
Building and Driveway entrance at Underground slope, Lanes in amusement parks for Vehicle lanes in
community community, factory, junction, office building go-carts, bumper cars, or mountainous parks or
or square square lanes racing cars amusement parks
Table 3. Construction costs of regular and musical roads using different pavement materials
Materials Asphalt Cement concrete
Pavement types Regular road ① Musical road ② (②–①)/① 100% Regular road ③ Musical road ④ (④–③)/③ 100%
Cost 180–200 Yuan/m2 215–250 Yuan/m2 20–25% 70–80 Yuan/m2 88–105 Yuan/m2 25–30%
(26·25–29·17 US$/m2) (31·35–36·46 US$/m2) (10·20–11·66 US$/m2) (12·83–15·31 US$/m2)
produces rich and varied melodies. At a slope curve or a can be observed from Table 3 that the construction costs of a
tunnel, ‘sound’ is used to limit the vehicle speed, recognise the musical road have risen by 20–30% compared with those of a
road, reduce or even eliminate the negative effect of tyre noise regular road due to the extra pavement cutting process and the
on drivers and passengers, improve driver attention, reduce corresponding labour costs. The cost of such a musical road
vehicle speed and ensure traffic safety. Additionally, passengers section is a relatively small portion of the total cost of the
will not experience any bumpy discomfort. Recommended pos- entire road because its length is usually only a few hundred
itions to deploy musical roads are shown in Table 2. Musical metres.
roads should be kept away from residential areas.
Under normal operation, the designed service life of the
4. Costs and maintenance musical road section is as long as the regular asphalt or
According to the raw materials and labour costs of the cement concrete pavement. Taking the Chinese Changge
Chinese construction market, the construction costs of regular musical road (built in 2013) as an example, no obvious pave-
and musical roads with asphalt surface and cement concrete ment distress has been found in this musical road section
surface are listed in Table 3 (Huang, 2016). Note that the during the past 6 years, except that the right angle around the
materials used in the musical road section are the same as that grooves has been worn out under repeated wheel loads, as
in the regular road section, so it is not necessary to prepare shown in Figure 8. However, the slight worn portion has little
specialised materials to make the musical roads. However, it effect on the normal function of a musical road. Therefore, the
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Transport Musical roads: design, construction and
potential economic and safety benefits
Zhou, Huang, Hu, Zhou and An
through the wheels into the car body when the vehicle crosses
Under repeated wheel over the specially designed grooves. The front, middle and rear
loads wheels pass through the same groove in turn, so the driver can
hear the same note three times asynchronously. The time inter-
vals between the same notes are determined by the factors of
the axle spacing L and the vehicle speed ν. Specifically, the
second piece of music lags behind the starting time of the first
one by L1/v seconds, while the third piece of music lags L2/v
seconds behind the second. According to the authors’ actual
experience, a driver may pay more attention to the first piece
of music, produced by contact between the front tyre and pave-
ment cuttings, than to the following two repeated musical sec-
tions, as the driver’s seat is generally closer to the front wheel.
The designers are currently trying to make different axles work
together to play the same song synchronously.
(a) (b)
Figure 8. Worn portion of a musical road segment under 5.2 Vehicle weight and wheel pressure
repeated wheel loads: (a) newly built; (b) wear occurring As shown in Figure 9(b), although different types of vehicles
have different total weights, the contact pressure p between the
tyre and the pavement of different kinds of vehicles can be
maintenance and supervisory work of the musical road section controlled to a similar stress level by increasing or decreasing
are basically the same as for the same types of regular roads. the number of tyres. According to the requirement of China’s
The owner does not need to take any special measures for the Ministry of Transportation, the contact pressure p should not
maintenance and repair of musical roads. exceed 7 105 Pa (GB/T 2977 (MOT, 1998)). So it is not the
total weight but the contact pressure that affects the generated
5. Effect analysis of vehicle parameters sound. The greater the contact pressure, the louder is the
sound produced.
5.1 Axle spacing and number of axles
As shown in Figure 9(a), a three-axle vehicle was selected as 6. Application of musical roads
an example to illustrate the influence of axle spacing and To date, musical roads have already been used in several
number of axles on generated sounds. It can be known from countries, including Denmark, Japan, America and China.
the previous discussion that the sound is produced by contact Some applications of musical roads in these countries are
between the tyres and the pavement cuttings, then transmitted introduced briefly below.
v
Three-axle vehicle
L2 L1
Tyre
N <
N p= 5
= 7 × 10 Pa
A
Contact areas A
Pavement
Figure 9. Analysis model of the vehicle and the pavement: (a) a three-axle vehicle; (b) different number of tyres; (c) contact between the
tyre and the pavement
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Transport Musical roads: design, construction and
potential economic and safety benefits
Zhou, Huang, Hu, Zhou and An
Enjoy the
safety drive
End point
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Transport Musical roads: design, construction and
potential economic and safety benefits
Zhou, Huang, Hu, Zhou and An
(a) (b)
Musical road
section
(c)
Figure 13. The musical roads in China: (a) Changge; (b) Yantai; (c) Beijing
by the collision between tyres and grooves creates a melody. it. By crossing the proper number of grooves per second, a
In 2017, a 350 m long musical road was constructed in note is played. The pavements were designed so the songs
Beijing, as shown in Figure 13(c). Designed groove cuttings were heard correctly only when a car drove at a certain
were deployed at the bifurcation curve of a road in Qianling speed encouraging drivers to follow the speed limits.
mountain scenic area, Fengtai District, Beijing. Different (b) By controlling the depth and spacing of cutting grooves,
groove widths, spacings and depths represent different notes. engineers and designers can control the pitch and rhythm
When a vehicle travels through this road segment, safety of the vibrations they produce as a driver passes over the
warning music is produced (Cao, 2016). indentations. Assuming a car is travelling at a constant
speed, spacing the grooves closer together increases the
7. Conclusions pitch and spacing them farther apart lowers the pitch.
In this paper, the concept and structural forms of musical roads (c) It is suggested that the musical grooves are installed in
have been systematically introduced; in addition, the effect, particularly dangerous stretches of a road in an attempt
reasonable layout and present applications of this new pavement to help motorists stay alert and awake. It is a new concept
structure in some countries have also been discussed in this to reduce the number of traffic accidents. It is also worth
study. The main conclusions of this paper are listed below. pointing out that the location of these musical road
sections should be away from any residential areas, to
(a) The sound-production theory behind a musical road is avoid affecting the normal life of nearby residents.
easy to understand. For the most common, groove-type
musical road, cutting grooves at varying depths and Acknowledgement
varying distances from each other in asphalt roads can This study was supported by the National Nature Science
produce sounds that translate to musical notes when Foundation of People’s Republic of China (grant 51808559
a motorist travels over them. Specifically, each groove cut and grant 51578546). This financial support is gratefully
into the road causes one vibration as the tyres cross over acknowledged.
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Transport Musical roads: design, construction and
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Zhou, Huang, Hu, Zhou and An
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