Use of pavement marking degradation models to develop a pavement marking management system

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation collected periodic pavement marking retroreflectivity data on 88 roadway segments over a 1-year period from May 2007 through May 2008. The purpose of this effort was to use the data collected to develop a series of pavement marking degradation models that could be used to implement a management system. In this study, panel data models were used to estimate the service life of both waterborne and epoxy pavement markings because of the repeated retroreflectivity measurements recorded over time. It was found that pavement marking retroreflectivity decreases as the age of both epoxy and waterborne-paint pavement markings increase. White pavement markings were shown to have higher estimated service lives than yellow pavement markings. Traffic exposure was found to be negatively correlated with pavement marking retroreflectivity in the waterborne-paint analysis, but traffic exposure was not statistically significant in the epoxy pavement marking retroreflectivity model. A life cycle cost analysis showed that waterborne paints are more cost-effective than epoxy pavement markings if applied on a statewide basis.