Safety effects of wet-weather pavement markings

Abstract

While there has been increasing interest in wet-weather pavement markings due to their improved visibility and potential for enhancing road safety in wet-night conditions, there is a lack of research evaluating their safety effectiveness based on actual wet-night crash data. This paper presents the safety assessment of wet-weather pavement markings in the Atlanta District of the Texas Department of Transportation, conducted by two different evaluation approaches that are known to be rigorous and statistically defensible: Empirical-Bayes before-after analysis and full Bayes before-after analysis with comparison groups. The results from both approaches suggest that there are positive safety effects of wet-weather pavement markings for relevant crashes, providing evidence-based support for safety benefits of wet-weather markings.

Keywords: Before-after safety evaluation; Dry-night crashes; Empirical Bayes; Full Bayes; Wet-night crashes; Wet-weather pavement markings.