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

Title:

Pavement Friction in a Program Aimed at Reducing Wet-Weather Traffic Accidents at the Network Level

Abstract:

About 20 percent of all traffic accidents occur in wet-weather conditions. Pavement surface problems such as lack of skid resistance probably contributed to a portion of those vehicle accidents on wet-pavements. This paper is concerned with the development of an approach aimed at reducing wet-weather accidents. The main feature of the proposed approach is that it uses data from both automated accident and skid data files. An example is used to illustrate the functionality and effectiveness of the proposed approach and the associated computer program. Accident history was obtained on about five hundred rural two-lane highway sections over three-year period. The total traffic accidents involved were about thirty-six thousand. A criterion to estimate possible risks was developed and a system of priority ratings, based on economical analysis, was established to assist in the process of selecting slippery highway sections for maintenance, permitting available funds to be optimally allocated.

Source(s):

85th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting; University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown and Birzeit University (Palestine), For an electronic copy of this resource, please direct your request to WeatherFeedback@dot.gov.

Date: 2006

Author:

Murad, Abaza

Keywords:


Pavement friction
Crashes
Safety

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