TOKYO, JAPAN: Many motorists like to listen to music or the radio as they drive, but how many would say they enjoyed listening to the sounds of the road?

That might no longer be such a strange idea, thanks to the work of a team of engineers from Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute. The team carved a series of grooves at very specific intervals onto several Japanese roads.

As vehicles move over the grooves, high or low notes are produced depending on how far apart the grooves are. This is similar to the rumbling tone that can be heard throughout a vehicle when it travels over small speed bumps or road markings.

The principle allowed the Hokkaido team to compose “tunes” to be “played” by traffic moving on the roads.

So far, these “musical strips” have been carved into three roads in central and northern Japan. One of the strips plays a portion of a Japanese pop song, the “music” lasts around 30 seconds.

Drivers approaching these strips will be notified about their presence by signs. In addition, brightly-coloured musical notes also adorn the surface of the roads upon which these strips have been carved.

The idea of creating a musical road was conceived by Shizuo Shinoda after he accidentally gouged up a section of road with a bulldozer. When he drove over the scrape marks in his car later, a variety of tones were produced as the car moved over them.