Investigating Predictability of Pavement Friction on Rural Roads in Ontario, Canada

Pavement friction is one of the most important operational requirements to ensure highway safety. Pavement friction contributes to the driver’s ability to maintain vehicle control during braking and cornering maneuvers. Pavement surface friction is affected by pavement surface characteristics, vehicle operational parameters, tire properties, and environmental conditions. Among these factors, transportation agencies are responsible for monitoring and maintaining adequate pavement surface texture which is affected by two levels of textures, microtexture and macrotexture. Practically, incorporating friction into the pavement management is still challenging for many transportation agencies because there is not a specific device that can measure both textures simultaneously. In Ontario Canada, microtexture is measured using a locked wheel device and macrotexture is measured using laser profilometer attached to high-speed road analyzer (ARAN). The former test is relatively time-consuming and often done with less frequency than macrotexture. This research aimed to examine variables that affect microtexture and macrotexture and to develop a regression model that can be used by the road agencies to estimate skid resistance using mixture parameters, traffic characteristics, and direct measurement of macrotexture using ARAN. In this study, field data were collected on freeway segments of asphalt surface course within a variety of functional classes of rural roads of the Ontario road network. Stepwise regression approach was conducted to identify significant variables and build the prediction model. The results show that pavement skid resistance for asphalt surfaces can be estimated with a fair coefficient of determination.

  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AFD90 Standing Committee on Pavement Surface Properties and Vehicle Interaction.
  • Corporate Authors:

    Transportation Research Board

    500 Fifth Street, NW
    Washington, DC  United States  20001
  • Authors:
    • Omar, Luciana Girardi
    • El Halim, Abd Omar
    • Ismail, Karim
  • Conference:
  • Date: 2017

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 13p
  • Monograph Title: TRB 96th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01624315
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: 17-02502
  • Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
  • Created Date: Jan 30 2017 9:54AM