Global Road Marking Materials Industry

Widening Fiscal Deficit & Its Ability to Reduce Potential Capital Stock in the Economy Overshadows Sentiment in the Infrastructure Market. Road Marking Materials Slumps by -13.7%

The global market for Road Marking Materials is expected to slump by -13.7% in the year 2020 and thereafter recover and grow to reach US$7.9 billion by the year 2027, trailing a post COVID-19 CAGR 4.6% over the analysis period 2020 through 2027. As governments worldwide open up their war chest spending billions of unplanned dollars on fighting the pandemic and strengthening healthcare systems, deficits are widening significantly. Already infrastructure spending is witnessing budget cuts threating to widen an already wide infrastructure spending gap. Reallocation of government funds for disaster management & COVID-19 induced disruptions in new tenders in road maintenance & development send the road marking materials market slumping in the year 2020. Cutbacks on infrastructure spending to meet missed deficit targets infuse uncertainty over the strength of recovery. In the U.S., the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting dip in road users have resulted in postponement of road construction projects in several states. The stay-at-home mandates and travel ban along with the decision of various companies to consider the work-from-home strategy has reduced traffic, which is affecting revenues from fuel taxes and toll bridges, representing major sources of financing for road maintenance and improvement projects. Several states in the country are struggling with notable lack of funding for DOTs.

Washington is facing an estimated loss of around $100 million in fuel tax revenue. In addition, the Maine DOT is looking forward to a budget gap of $123 million. The issue has coerced some of the states to delay non-essential highway, bridge or street projects as well as downgrade road resurfacing programs to sealing and patching. The scenario has prompted transport officials and major associations to seek federal funding for covering these losses, which are estimated to be 30-50% of state revenues. The problem is anticipated to be exacerbated by impending expiry of the FAST ACT in September, which is expected to put immense burden on states. Various states are likely to find it extremely challenging to address backlog of construction projects. On the other hand, associations are making efforts to seek $50 billion federal funding to support critical infrastructure projects. In India, the road marking materials market received a major setback from COVID-19 and remarkable drop in road construction activity. The nationwide lockdown announced by the Indian government and associated shortage of materials and labor dampened the highway construction activity over April-May. India witnessed construction of only 847km of highways during the period, which was considerably lower than 1,692km achieved during the same period in 2019. While highway construction in the country was pegged at 10,885km or around 29.82km a day in 2018-2019, it declined marginally to 10,237km in the following financial year. The loss in productivity along with limited labor availability during the first quarter of FY2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions has severely affected construction activity in India.

In the post COVID-19 period growth will be led by technology innovations. Advanced road marking systems for autonomous vehicles combine multiple features in a single road marking. These options feature raised closely-packed dots to improve surface area and ensure high visibility at night. In addition to allowing draining of any surface or standing water, these dots offer high performance, skid resistance, wet night visibility and sensory, audible and enhanced day visual properties. These surface treatments can be quickly detected by lane keep assist camera systems of vehicles and conform to futuristic autonomous vehicles. Proper application of these dots along with decent weather conditions result in a long life of around five years. The advent of smart and technologically advanced automobiles will lead to increased focus on ensuring that conventional asphalt roads are also smart. In the road marking space, greater efforts will be directed towards creating glow in the dark streets for enhancing visibility of night-time driving. Glow in the dark markings being developed will use solar power for charging in the day time to ensure night-time glow for better illumination of lane divisions. Currently, few projects are ongoing to create roadways involving the use of panels to generate and store electricity. These solar roadways are expected to offer various options such charging the electric vehicles while driving by providing electric charging lanes, and melting snow. In addition, "electric priority" lanes are also being created, which are similar to solar panel roadways that enable charging of electric vehicles, use magnetic fields for allowing drivers to charge the cars while driving. Another innovation involves the use of sensors for providing better insights into the atmospheric conditions and real-time weather for understanding their impact on the roads. Subsequently, enabling transportation managers to assess the road conditions before in hand, while avoiding any unforeseen dangers and make safer roads. This kind of data will enable industry professionals to ensure road use in a better way and also get insights into traffic patterns to identify the causes of accidents.

Competitors identified in this market include, among others,

• 3M Company
• Dow Inc.
• Fosroc International Ltd.
• ACB NV
• Asian Paints PPG Pvt. Limited
• Automark Technologies (India) Pvt. Ltd.
• Aximum SA
• Crown Technologies LLC
• Ennis-Flint, Inc.
• Geveko Markings