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Title:

Safety Evaluation of Wet-Reflective Pavement Markings

Accession Number:

01592888

Record Type:

Component

Abstract:

The application of wet-reflective pavement markings was selected for safety evaluation as part of a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Pooled Fund Study. This strategy involves upgrading existing markings from standard marking materials to wet-reflective markings, applied as a paint, tape or thermoplastic material, and designed to provide an improved level of retroreflectivity during wet road conditions. Geometric, traffic, and crash data were obtained at treated freeway sections in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wisconsin; treated two-lane rural road locations in Minnesota; and treated multilane road sections in Wisconsin. To account for potential selection bias due to regression-to-the-mean, an empirical Bayes (EB) before-after analysis was conducted. For freeways, the combined results for all States indicate reductions in crashes that are statistically significant at the 5 percent level for injury and wet-road crashes, with estimated crash modification factors (CMFs) of 0.881 and 0.861, respectively. For multilane roads, statistically significant reductions were estimated for total crashes (CMF=0.825), injury crashes (CMF=0.595), run-off-road crashes (CMF=0.538), wet road crashes (CMF=0.751), and night-time crashes (CMF=0.696). For two-lane roads, the sample of crashes was too small to detect effects with statistical significance, but there are indications that the treatment may have a safety benefit for wet-road crashes. Benefit-cost ratios estimated with conservative cost and service life assumptions suggest that the treatment can be cost effective, especially so for multilane roads.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB50 Standing Committee on Traffic Control Devices.

Monograph Accession #:

01584066

Report/Paper Numbers:

16-6137

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Lyon, Craig
Persaud, Bhagwant
Eccles, Kim

Pagination:

17

Publication Date:

2016

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Web

Features:

References (8) ; Tables

Geographic Terms:

Minnesota; North Carolina; Wisconsin

Subject Areas:

Highways; Pavements; Safety and Human Factors

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016 Paper #16-6137

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Jan 12 2016 6:42PM