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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

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Title:

Correlating Retroreflectivity of Wet and Dry Pavement Markings

Abstract:

This research evaluated the retroreflectivity of flat thermoplastic markings (FTM) and profiled pavement markings (PPM) installed on highways maintained by the Alabama Department of Transportation. Dry and wet retroreflectivity data for sixteen one-mile segments of FTM and twenty-one, one-mile segments of PPM were collected three times over a one-year period using a mobile retroreflectometer. The authors designed a large-scale wet retroreflectivity data collection method using a mobile retroreflectometer and water truck to fulfill the needs of this research. This test method may serve as a starting point to produce a standard to for large-scale testing of pavement markings in the wet condition. The work established a correlation between dry and wet retroreflectivity for the two marking types, which enables predicting wet retroreflectivity based on the much-easier-to-obtain dry readings.

Source(s):

83rd Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting; University of Alabama, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. For an electronic copy of this resource, contact Lynette Goodwin at lynette.goodwin@noblis.org.

Date: 2004

Author:

Lindly, Wijesundera, Supriyasilp

Keywords:


Precipitation
Rain
Pavement condition
Vehicle guidance

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