Road Weather Management Program
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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Title:

Performance Evaluation of Pavement Markings under Dry, Wet, and Rainy Conditions in the Field

Abstract:

The nighttime visibility of three types of pavement markings, a large-beaded permanent pavement marking, and two types of patterned pavement marking tapes, one with high-index beads, and another with mixed high index beads were evaluated under dry, wet (just after rainfall), and simulated rain conditions (ongoing one in/hr rainfall). The dependent measures were the detection distance, and the pavement marking retroreflectance. The participants drove an experimental vehicle at roadway test sections with the pavement marking treatments. In terms of end detection distances, the patterned tape with mixed-high index beads performed best under all of the three weather conditions. The paint and large bead pavement markings were comparable to the tape with high-index beads under wet and rainy conditions. Under dry conditions, paint and large bead pavement markings performed the worst. The detection distances seem to strongly correlate with the standard retroreflectances, only if the retroreflectance data from corresponding test method is used.

Source(s):

83rd Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, University of Iowa. For an electronic copy of this resource, please direct your request to WeatherFeedback@dot.gov.

Date: 2004

Author:

Aktan, Schnell

Keywords:


Precipitation
Rain
Pavement condition
Vehicle guidance

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