Improve Wet-Weather Visibility of Retroreflective Pavement Markings

Almost 50% of fatal crashes happen at night, and 70% of weather-related crashes occur on wet pavements. At night, pavement markings on wet pavements have substantially reduced retroreflectivity which increases the risk of injury related crashes and fatal crashes. Therefore, it is important to understand why pavement markings have reduced visibility at night on wet conditions and identify how to improve their visibility. OBJECTIVES: Search literature and find the extent of pavement marking degradation during wet nighttime conditions. Compare the visibility values during nighttime on wet conditions reported in the literature with visibility values at the same conditions on Kansas road systems. Conduct market research and a cost analysis to find existing solutions. Propose cost-effective alternative solutions to improve the visibility and run pilot testing, including discussion on how the Kansas Department of Transportation (KsDOT) could develop a long-term pavement marking testbed to evaluate new pavement marking products.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $91,500.00
• Contract Numbers:

  K-TRAN: KU-25-4

  RE-0901-01

  C2244

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Kansas Department of Transportation

  Eisenhower State Office Building
  700 SW Harrison Street
  Topeka, KS  United States  66603-3754
• Performing Organizations:

  University of Kansas Center for Research, Incorporated

  2291 Irving Hill Drive, Campus West
  Lawrence, KS  United States  66045
• Principal Investigators:

  Schrock, Steven

  Kondyli, Alexandra

• Start Date: 20250601
• Expected Completion Date: 20261231
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Literature reviews; Retroreflectivity; Road markings; Visibility; Wet weather
• Subject Areas: Highways; Materials; Pavements; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01976224
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Kansas Department of Transportation
• Contract Numbers: K-TRAN: KU-25-4, RE-0901-01, C2244
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jan 13 2026 2:50PM