U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
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Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology
Coordinating, Developing, and Delivering Highway Transportation Innovations
| REPORT |
| This report is an archived publication and may contain dated technical, contact, and link information |
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| Publication Number: FHWA-HRT-15-065 Date: September 2015 |
Publication Number: FHWA-HRT-15-065 Date: September 2015 |
The objective of this study was to undertake a rigorous before–after evaluation of the safety effectiveness of wet-reflective pavement markings as measured by crash frequency. The study used data from three States—Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wisconsin—to examine the effects for specific crash types, including total, fatal plus injury, run-off-road, sideswipe-same direction, wet-road, nighttime, and nighttime wet-road crashes. Table 16 shows the various crash types for which a statistically significant CMF at the 95-percent confidence level could be estimated. Crashes occurring at or related to an intersection and snow/slush ice snow/slush/ice* and animal-related crashes were not included and should not be included when applying the recommended CMFs.
Table 16. Recommended CMFs and standard errors.
| Type of Road | Total1 | Injury | Run-Off- Road |
Wet-Road | Nighttime |
| Freeways | — | 0.881 (0.033) |
— | 0.861 (0.040) |
— |
| Multilane roads | 0.825 (0.051) |
0.595 (0.059) |
0.538 (0.078) |
0.751 (0.108) |
0.696 (0.082) |
| 1Total crashes and other crash types do not include those related to intersections, animals, or snow/slush/ice conditions. — Indicates no recommended CMF is available. |
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B/C ratios estimated with conservative cost and service life assumptions were 1.45 for freeways and 5.44 for multilane roads. With the USDOT recommended sensitivity analysis, these values could range from 0.83 to 2.04 for freeways and 3.10 to 7.67 for multilane roads.(1) These results suggest that the treatment—even with conservative assumptions on cost, service life, and the value of a statistical life—can be cost effective.
With additional data, future research may provide statistically significant results for total, run-off-road, and nighttime crashes on freeways those crash types for which a CMF could not be recommended, as well as more informative disaggregate analysis and the development of analyses to develop disaggregate* CMFs.
* Revised 3/12/2019
