News 17Dec

December 2017

Safety Evaluation of Edge Line Rumble Strips (ELRSs) on Rural, Two-Lane Horizontal Curves

The Federal Highway Administration has released a report that evaluates the application of edge line rumple strips (ELRSs) on rural, two-lane horizontal curves. ELRSs were created in order to reduce the frequency of run-off-road crashes and nighttime crashes by alerting drivers that they are about to leave the lane and by enhancing visibility of the edge line.

Background

FHWA established the Development of Crash Modification Factors (DCMF) program in 2012 to address highway safety research needs for evaluating new and innovative safety strategies (improvements) by developing reliable quantitative estimates of their effectiveness in reducing crashes.

40 state transportation departments provide technical feedback on safety improvements to the DCMF program and implement new safety improvements to facilitate evaluations.

Several research studies have examined the use of shoulder rumble strips (SRSs); however, research into the performance of ELRSs is rare and has not been rigorously evaluated. Additionally, milled rumble strips are installed on roadway segments, consisting of both horizontal tangents and horizontal curves.

Installations on only horizontal curves are uncommon and, therefore, safety effectiveness evaluations have not focused on their effectiveness on horizontal curves specifically. This research focused on the safety effectiveness of ELRSs on rural, two-lane horizontal curves, taken from rumble stripe installations that are not specific to horizontal curves.

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