Safety evaluation of wet reflective pavement markers.

Details

• Creators:
  Lyon, Craig ; Persaud, Bhagwant Naraine, 1947- ; Eccles, Kimberly A.
• Corporate Creators:
  VHB/Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. ; Persaud Lyon, Inc.
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Empirical Bayesian Highway Safety Low-cost Raised Road Markings Reflectorized Road Markings Safety Evaluations Safety Improvements Traffic Safety Wet-reflective Pavement Markings
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA-HRT-15-065
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Abstract:
  The Federal Highway Administration organized a pooled fund study of 38 States to evaluate low-cost safety
  
  strategies as part of its strategic highway safety effort. One of the strategies selected for evaluation was the
  
  application of wet-reflective pavement markings. This strategy involves upgrading existing markings from standard
  
  marking materials to wet-reflective markings applied as a paint, tape, or thermoplastic material. The purpose was to
  
  provide an improved level of retroreflectivity in wet-road conditions. Geometric, traffic, and crash data were
  
  obtained for 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
  
  owing to regression-to-the-mean, an Empirical Bayes (EB) before–after analysis was conducted. The analysis also
  
  controlled for changes in traffic volumes over time and time trends in crash counts unrelated to the treatment.
  
  Intersection-related, snow/slush ice, and animal crashes were excluded from the analysis. For freeways, the
  
  combined results for all States indicated reductions in crashes that are statistically significant at the 95-percent
  
  confidence 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 nighttime crashes (CMF = 0.696). For two-lane roads, the sample of crashes was too small to
  
  detect an effect with statistical significance for any of the crash types, but there were indications that the treatment
  
  had a safety benefit for wet-road crashes. Benefit–cost ratios estimated with conservative cost and service life
  
  assumptions were 1.45 for freeways and 5.44 for multilane roads. The results suggest that the treatment—even with
  
  conservative assumptions on cost, service life, and value of a statistical life—can be cost effective, especially for
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  DTFH61-13-D-00001
• Collection(s):
  Federal Highway Administration US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7ace07ea1b861657e2bb63170c5ed5fae314bb6f491cb5191d0932b19f3bf6c95f7214811760c50ca301addbf3698a5684394e61d768225938a6a1f978c4768f
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/29748/dot_29748_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.15 MB ]