A new methodology to assess the performance of road surface markings

CIRIAF, in cooperation with the Municipality of Perugia (Italy), is participating in a research project whose aim is to define a methodology for road markings in-situ measurements. The objective is to take into account the characteristics of the site of installation of road markings in order to improve safety, to optimize the maintenance and to give the municipality a tool to verify the quality of the application, in order to assess if the requirements given in tenders are fulfilled. The activity is performed within the framework of the EU FP7 funded project CIVITAS Plus "RENAISSANCE". In particular, an innovative indicator was developed, in order to rate the global quality of municipal road markings. This indicator takes into account all the parameters characterizing the performance of road markings: luminance Coefficient in day conditions Qd, retroreflectivity in night conditions RL (dry, wet), skid resistance SRT, colour, material and ageing of the pavement markings, volume of traffic, characteristics of road surface and average local weather conditions. The paper, after the first section about the methodology for the evaluation of the performance of road surface markings, reports the definition of the new indicator and the results of the experimental campaigns carried out on several roads of the municipality of Perugia.