Smart roads of the future: The highway will "see" and warn the driver

Imagine a road that does not just connect two points, but constantly monitors what is happening on the highway. It notices icy conditions before a car reaches a dangerous section, records a traffic jam several kilometers away, warns vehicles about a pedestrian around the corner, and transmits traffic light status data directly to the vehicle. In the future, such a road will be able not only to inform the driver, but also to interact directly with an autonomous vehicle.

This is precisely the direction in which transport infrastructure is heading. The autonomous vehicle of the future is not just a car equipped with cameras, radars, LiDAR, and a powerful computer. For full autonomy, it will require a surrounding digital environment: roads, traffic lights, road signs, sensors, and communication networks. StartUs Insights conducted a study on the future of autonomous transport, highlighting potential development trends in the sector up to 2035.

The road turns into a sensor system

According to the study, the main change is that road infrastructure is ceasing to be passive. Today, a driver sees a sign, a traffic light, or road markings and makes an independent decision. In the future, a significant part of this information will flow directly into the car in digital form.

The foundation of such a system will be V2X technology — Vehicle-to-Everything — meaning data exchange between a vehicle and virtually everything surrounding it. Cars will be able to exchange information with each other, receive data from road infrastructure, interact with pedestrians, and connect to networks. This will allow the vehicle to "see" danger even before its own sensors detect it.

For example, a vehicle can receive a message about a car braking sharply ahead, even if it is hidden around a turn or behind a truck. The road system can warn of a slippery surface, roadworks, or congestion. Meanwhile, a traffic light can transmit information about its current and upcoming signals.

To achieve this, roads will use cameras, radars, and LiDAR mounted on traffic lights and road signs, as well as sensors embedded directly into the pavement. They will be able to record vehicle weight, road temperature, and vibrations. The collected data will be processed at the edge of the network and transmitted almost instantaneously to vehicles.

5G, sensors, and AI instead of traditional road signs

High-speed communication lies at the core of this infrastructure. C-V2X, operating through modern mobile networks, is designed to ensure data exchange with minimal latency. According to StartUs Insights, by 2034, over 90% of the market could transition to 5G-based C-V2X.

However, connectivity alone is not enough. A smart road will represent an entire distributed computing system. Sensors gather information, artificial intelligence analyzes it, and edge computing devices make decisions directly near the location where an event occurs.

This is especially critical in situations where fractions of a second count. If a road sensor detects black ice, the system does not need to send a massive volume of data to a remote data center and wait for a response first. A local computing module can identify the hazard and transmit a warning to nearby vehicles almost instantaneously.

Such architecture is capable of changing the very concept of road safety. The vehicle will no longer be the sole source of information about the road — part of the vehicle's "vision" will shift beyond the car body.

The first smart roads already exist

This is not just about a distant future. Individual elements of this infrastructure are already undergoing testing and scaling.

One illustrative example is a US project in Tampa, where V2X technologies were used for data exchange between vehicles and infrastructure. As part of the pilot, the system transmitted 72 million informational messages and recorded approximately 150,000 interactions between connected vehicles. According to data cited in the study, the number of potentially dangerous straight-ahead motion conflicts decreased by 9%, emergency braking dropped by 23%, and the system helped prevent 21 potential collisions with pedestrians.

The sector is developing on an even larger scale in China. According to the study, C-V2X already covers over 90 cities and approximately 5,000 kilometers of "smart" roads. In 2024, roughly 500,000 passenger cars were equipped with C-V2X, and by 2028, their number could exceed 2 million.

Thus, the focus is gradually shifting from isolated experimental intersections to the creation of whole connected transport corridors.

But smart roads bring new risks

The more vehicles and roads are connected to a unified digital system, the higher the cost of an error or a cyberattack.

While a traditional road sign can be physically damaged, digital infrastructure could potentially become a target for remote interference. Therefore, alongside the development of V2X, the importance of encryption, authentication, and data protection grows. StartUs Insights notes that the V2X cybersecurity market could expand from $1.99 billion in 2024 to $5.26 billion by 2029.

There is another challenge — trust. Autonomous transport cannot achieve mass adoption simply because the technology works technical-wise. People must be ready to trust both the vehicle and the infrastructure. Over 70% of consumers, according to the study's data, remain concerned about the risk of autonomous vehicles being hacked.

Therefore, the path toward fully autonomous transport will prove significantly more complex than simply installing a powerful computer inside a car.