a magazine from atlas copco construction technique – NO.2 / 2012
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“Why not just make the traffic drive over the work site?” Gosha Galitsky, Industrial Engineer
Paving the roads of tom In the future, how will the gridlocked streets of megacities be repaired? Industrial designer Gosha Galitsky has a solution. Text David Wiles ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF Gosha Galitsky
Cities with populations of
more than 10 million people – megacities – deal with heavy traffic issues daily. But when there is road construction, entire arteries can come to a complete standstill causing longer trip times and severe air pollution from idling cars. Solving these problems will become even more important as increasing numbers of people move to urban centers. Industrial designer Gosha Galitsky, in close collaboration with Dynapac and with input from NCC Roads, has come
up with an attractive and innovative solution to these looming challenges – the Red Carpet. It’s an electric-powered paver that can repair asphalt roads on the move without disrupting traffic: cars simply drive over the new repairs while Hot-in-Place recycling takes place underneath. “I wanted to see how we could repair megacity streets without causing a significant disruption to traffic,” says Galitsky, who did the project for his Master’s degree in Advanced Product Design at the
University of Umeå in Sweden. “I started by doing in-depth research into how these processes are done today, what impact the processes have on the environment and how they can be done better.” One glaring problem with road repair in bustling cities is that the paving process requires vast amounts of resources and energy. “Repairing roads requires a lot of material,” says Galitsky. “The material needs to be heated and then transported hot to the work site, so there is a limit to how far the truck can travel. Also there are a multitude of machines involved in the process, and it involves a lot of energy, so this process is not compatible with a megacity. Road repairs can be very painful for the city and its residents.” The Red Carpet concept solves these issues, and while futuristic