Later Developments
As petroleum production increased, the by-product asphalt became available in greater quantities and largely supplanted tar due to its reduced temperature sensitivity. The Macadam construction process also became quickly obsolete due to its high manual labour requirement; however, the somewhat similar tar and chip method, also known as bituminous surface treatment (BST) or "chip-seal", remains popular.
While the specific tarmac pavement is not common in some countries today, many people use the word to refer to generic paved areas at airports, especially the airport ramp or "apron", near the terminals despite the fact that many of these areas are in fact often made of concrete. The Wick Airport at Wick in Caithness, Scotland is one of the few airports that still has a real tarmac runway.. Similarly in the UK the word tarmac is commonly used as an alternative term for asphalt concrete.
Tarmac is a registered trademark, although it is frequently used with a lower-case initial letter.
Read more about this topic: Tarmac
Famous quotes containing the word developments:
“The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization, and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor-intensive economy and its traditional folk culture.”
—C. Vann Woodward (b. 1908)
“I don’t wanna live in a city where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn on a red light.
Freedom from labor itself is not new; it once belonged among the most firmly established privileges of the few. In this instance, it seems as though scientific progress and technical developments had been only taken advantage of to achieve something about which all former ages dreamed but which none had been able to realize.”
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