CABLE GUARDRAIL

In areas with a snow drifting problem, guardrails can act like snow fences and cause snow to drift across the highway. Cable guardrail systems that greatly reduce the problem have been used extensively in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand with considerable success. Tensioned cable guardrail, which recently received National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 350 approval and has NCHRP Report 350 certified end treatments, could be very useful in Colorado. Deflection, when the guardrail is struck by a vehicle, is limited. The systems are bidirectional, making them useful in narrow areas, both on shoulders and in highway medians. Maintenance is very simple, fast, and inexpensive. This study is monitoring the performance of cable guardrail installed in Colorado. The three-year study will gather accident, maintenance, and repair data from sites and build databases to evaluate the data. Severity of damage to the system when it is hit, including costs and time needed to make repairs will be recorded. Information from accident reports will be included to determine the extent of damage to the impacting vehicles and information on injuries to drivers and passengers.

• Record URL:
  • https://www.codot.gov/programs/research/pdfs/2004/cableguardrail.pdf/
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  Colorado Department of Transportation

  4201 E Arkansas Avenue
  Denver, CO  United States  80222

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Outcalt, W
• Publication Date: 2004-6

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Photos; Tables;
• Pagination: 20 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Cables; Costs; Crash reports; Data collection; Deflection; Guardrails; Injuries; Loss and damage; Maintenance; Monitoring; Performance; Repairing
• Identifier Terms: National Cooperative Highway Research Program; NCHRP Report 350
• Uncontrolled Terms: Cable guardrails
• Geographic Terms: Colorado
• Subject Areas: Design; Finance; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors; I85: Safety Devices used in Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00976002
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: CDOT-DTD-R-2004-10,, Interim Report
• Contract Numbers: 91.06
• Files: TRIS, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jul 29 2004 12:00AM