EVALUATION OF THE FHWA'S SIGN MANAGEMENT AND RETROREFLECTIVITY TRACKING SYSTEM (SMARTS) VAN
This report documents a performance evaluation of the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA's) SMARTS van. The van's purpose is to photograph, record the location, and measure the retroreflectivity of traffic signs while traveling at highway speeds. Alaska needs a cost-effective method of inventorying signs and measuring their retroreflectivity to manage its $20+ million investment in signs, to know what signs are missing or illegible, and to analyze its compliance with impending national standards for sign retroreflectivity. Testing consisted of evaluating signs with the van on one rural and one urban road segment, evaluating signs on the rural road segment with a handheld sign retroreflectivity meter, and analyzing the results. The report concludes that the van's performance was not acceptable. Multiple readings on individual signs varied widely from one run to the next, the percentage of signs captured by the operators on a single pass was unacceptably low, and van readings did not correlate with those of a handheld meter (handheld meters are considered to the most accurate measuring device).
- Record URL:
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Corporate Authors:
Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities
3132 Channel Drive
Juneau, AK United States 99801-7898 -
Authors:
- Smith, K
- Fletcher, A
- Publication Date: 2001-7
Language
- English
Media Info
- Features: Appendices;
- Pagination: 56 p.
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Highways; Performance evaluations; Retroreflectivity; Roads; Rural areas; Traffic signs; Urban areas; Vans
- Identifier Terms: SMARTS van; U.S. Federal Highway Administration
- Geographic Terms: Alaska
- Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I73: Traffic Control;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 00940892
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: FHWA-AK-RD-01-01,, Final Report
- Files: TRIS, STATEDOT
- Created Date: Apr 15 2003 12:00AM