New Under-Lake Tunnel In China Uses LEDs And Virtual Sky Visuals To Counteract Driver Eye Fatigue

January 12, 2022 by Dave Haynes

A reader turned me on to news about a new highway tunnel that runs for almost 11 kms under a lake east of Shanghai in China – specifically because among the engineering marvel’s features is an LED ceiling that mimics a blue sky and clouds.

The low-rez LED ceiling in the Taihu Tunnel is there to reduce driver eye fatigue that, I am guessing, is otherwise brought on by the monotony of an endless road tunnel.

The news comes out of China and press reports have referenced, understandably, the scale of the tunnel, how it was made, and timelines. I don’t know how long the LED canopy is, or if there is just the one, or several (I can’t see one doing all that much to mitigate eye fatigue).

We’ve seen virtual ceilings in shopping malls and plazas, and some corporate spaces, but I’ve not seen them used for this sort of thing. There will, of course, be media companies looking at this and thinking ADS!!! One can only hope the authorities stick with the plan and are not attracted to the siren song of cost offsets through shared ad revenues.

If you know more about this – how many canopies, pitch, manufacturer – let me know!