Methodologies to Predict Service Lives of Pavement Marking Materials

Abstract

This study focuses on developing methodologies to predict the service life of a pavement marking material based on its retroreflectivity. Data from the 2002 National Transportation Product Evaluation Program (NTPEP) pavement marking material test deck in Mississippi are used for model development and model validation. The smoothing spline method and time series modeling are applied to estimate the service lives of different types of materials based on the assumption of a required minimum retroreflectivity value. The same models can also predict the retroreflectivity values at future times for a pavement marking product based on its retroreflectivity values in the past. The validation of the models shows satisfactory accuracy. As demonstrated in a case study, the predicted service lives of the marking materials can be used in life-cycle cost comparisons for selecting pavement marking material.