On March 23–24, 2017, the Research Institute of Highway under China’s Ministry of Transport and the I-ROAD China team (SK Traffic Safety) jointly organized the International Forum on Technological Innovation in Road Traffic Signs.
Speakers presenting academic perspectives and addresses included Gene Hawkins, researcher and professor at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) of Texas A&M University; Sandra Jacobi, Chair of Group 3 of the German Federal Highway Research Institute / European Committee for Standardization; Dr. Yoon Deok-geun of the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT); Kwong Tsz-hin, Chairman of Hong Kong Shang Xing Co., Ltd.; Professor Xu Yao-ci of Feng Chia University, Taiwan; and Chen Chao-zhuo, Director of the China-Sweden Traffic Safety Research Center. Nearly 300 experts and scholars from China and abroad attended the conference.
On the evening of March 23, during the conference, participants and members of the media observed a large-scale deployment site of active-illumination road signs in Nanjing, where more than 600 sets of active-illumination traffic signs had been installed as part of an all-weather traffic safety system.
I-ROAD founder Liu Gan introduced to his international peers that active-illumination sign technology and its applications had entered the 2.0 era. Building on improvements to the nighttime visibility of traffic signs and enhanced safety, the technology now achieves all-weather sign recognition, remote networked control, and digital scheduling, and has been formally integrated into the intelligent transportation system.