Study Details

Study Title: Investigation of Inlaid Pavement Marker Performance and Safety Effectiveness

Authors:

Publication Date: 2023

Abstract: The objectives of this study were to assess inlaid pavement marker (IPM) performance and estimate their safety effectiveness in St. Louis, Missouri. IPM performance was evaluated through a count of marker presence and a feedback survey from participants who viewed dry and wet night videos of IPM sections in the St Louis area. The safety effectiveness of IPMs was evaluated using a rigorous state-of-the-art empirical Bayes (EB) before–after crash analysis. The marker presence assessment, unfortunately, did not provide any conclusive trends in IPM performance. Newer IPM sections had higher percentages of missing markers than older sections, and there were too many unknown variables to determine the source of the unexpected differences. The unanimous conclusion of the nighttime video visibility survey was that drivers and passengers traveling on a wet night feel that IPMs are very important to the visibility of the roadway’s lane lines. For the EB analysis, installation and reference site data were used to examine the effects for specific crash types, including total, fatal and injury, wet pavement, nighttime, nighttime wet pavement, lane departure, wet pavement lane departure, and nighttime lane departure. Based on the aggregate results, IPMs, when installed with pavement resurfacing, significantly reduce all crash types examined.

Study Citation: Dwyer, C. and S. Himes. "Investigation of Inlaid Pavement Marker Performance and Safety Effectiveness". Transportation Research Record, Vol. 2677 (1), pp. 981 - 994, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Science, Washington, D.C., (2023).

Study Report: Download the Study Report Document


CMFs Associated With This Study

Category: Delineation

Countermeasure: Install Inlaid Pavement Marker (IPM)

CMF CRF(%)QualityCrash TypeCrash SeverityRoadway TypeArea Type
0.72285 StarsAllAllPrincipal Arterial Interstate, Principal Arterial Other Freeways and Expressways, Principal Arterial OtherAll
0.78225 StarsAllK,A,B,C,OPrincipal Arterial Interstate, Principal Arterial Other Freeways and Expressways, Principal Arterial OtherAll
0.72285 StarsAllAllPrincipal Arterial Interstate, Principal Arterial Other Freeways and Expressways, Principal Arterial OtherAll
0.82185 StarsAllAllPrincipal Arterial Interstate, Principal Arterial Other Freeways and Expressways, Principal Arterial OtherAll
0.72285 StarsAllAllPrincipal Arterial Interstate, Principal Arterial Other Freeways and Expressways, Principal Arterial OtherAll
0.8205 StarsOtherAllPrincipal Arterial Interstate, Principal Arterial Other Freeways and Expressways, Principal Arterial OtherAll
0.83175 StarsOtherAllPrincipal Arterial Interstate, Principal Arterial Other Freeways and Expressways, Principal Arterial OtherAll
0.82185 StarsOtherAllPrincipal Arterial Interstate, Principal Arterial Other Freeways and Expressways, Principal Arterial OtherAll