Kansas Updates Striping for Safety
BY AsphaltPro Staff
Automating pavement restriping in Kansas shows safety promise
The report titled “Effectiveness of Automated Pavement Restriping Systems, Phase I: Cost Comparison Between Manual and Automated Systems” is available as of September 2024 from the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT). The research conducted at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, under the direction of Steven D. Schrock, Ph.D., P.E., F.ITE and Lanxi Liu looked for financial advantages to KDOT’s implementation of an automated pavement restriping system. Other DOTs, municipalities and agencies can learn from KDOT’s findings by downloading the full report at https://kdotapp.ksdot.gov/kdotlib/kdotlib2.aspx and searching for KS-24-04 in the appropriate search field.
Agencies seek ways to keep up with striping maintenance. This not only helps departments to improve motorist safety, but as of late it has contributed to the “smart car” conversation. With pavement markings playing a role in alerting monitoring mechanisms to roadway alignment and vehicle location, maintaining the retroreflectivity of markings takes on increased importance.
The report by Schrock and Liu stated: “Retroreflectivity is the attribute that qualifies the capacity of a marker to reflect light from a headlight back to a driver’s eyes. Sprinkling glass beads into the marking materials has been shown to increase retroreflectivity and subsequent visibility, and effective quality control in painting operations, including the proper combination of painting ingredients and glass beads, has been shown to produce highly retroreflective and durable pavement markings. However, because retroreflectivity and durability degrade over time due to traffic and the environment, pavement markings must be restriped regularly to preserve performance for these parameters.”
To ensure consistent striping results, some groups wish to study how to remove human error from non-automated, manual processes. The key takeaways—quoted directly from the report summary on automated pavement restriping systems—include the following:
First, in actual practice, the cost savings may be more than estimated if the preparation savings are greater than anticipated.
Second, the automated system may paint with greater accuracy than the current manual process, especially in challenging scenarios such as dash lines near intersections and gore areas. This could result in a higher quality application with fewer errors.
Third, the need to manually measure the width of the restriped pavement markings would be eliminated or significantly decreased due to the enhanced accuracy of the automated system, thereby boosting crew safety…
Finally, in the automated system, the layout truck can move as quickly as the flow of traffic, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the restriping preparation, and even in inclement weather conditions, the layout truck can utilize the GPS location system to collect road data, thereby extending working hours.
For more information, reach out to Steven D. Schrock, Ph.D., P.E., F.ITE at schrock@ku.edu.