Preliminary Results towards Developing Thresholds for Pavement Condition Maintenance: Safety Perspective

This paper focuses on examining the relationship between the International Roughness Index (IRI) and crashes to compare thresholds from a safety perspective with fuel efficiency perspective and pavement condition categories. Findings from the literature review include profile elevations captured using a laser profilometer along two test corridors in the State of North Carolina, United States (first one with concrete pavement and the second one with asphalt pavement), traffic volume from travel survey maps, and crash data maintained by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) were used for analysis and identification of preliminary thresholds from the safety perspective for pavement maintenance. Profile elevation data was processed to compute IRI values for each 100-m (330-ft) section along each selected corridor by direction. Crashes (all and under wet-pavement conditions) were identified for each section and added to the database. Scatter plots were generated to observe the trends in the number of all and wet-pavement crashes per mile by IRI. The average number of all crashes per section, wet-pavement crashes per section, all crashes per million vehicle miles travelled (MVMT) and wet- pavement crashes per MVMT were also computed for each corridor. Results obtained indicate that targeting and maintaining lower IRI to improve fuel efficiency may yield similar benefits from a safety perspective. Based on analysis using data for the considered corridors, they do not seem to vary by pavement type.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.11.123
• Record URL:
  • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187704281304514X
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/18770428
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2013 Srinivas S. Pulugurtha et al.
• Authors:
  • Pulugurtha, Srinivas S
  • Ogunro, Vincent
  • Pando, Miguel A
  • Patel, Kuvleshay J
  • Bonsu, Agyeman
• Conference:
  • 2nd Conference of Transportation Research Group of India (2nd CTRG)
  • Location: Agra , India
  • Date: 2013-12-12 to 2013-12-15
• Publication Date: 2013-12-2

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 302-311
• Serial:
  • Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences
  • Volume: 104
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 1877-0428
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/18770428/53
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Fuel conservation; Highway safety; Pavement maintenance; Pavement performance; Roughness; Traffic crashes
• Identifier Terms: International Roughness Index; North Carolina Department of Transportation
• Geographic Terms: North Carolina
• Subject Areas: Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Pavements; Safety and Human Factors; I60: Maintenance; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01503370
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jan 6 2014 2:43PM