Evaluation of Potential Benefits of Wider and Brighter Edge Line Pavement Markings

This report documents the findings of a two-year study that investigated the potential benefits of wider edge line pavement markings. There were four general tasks discussed in the report: 1) review of literature, 2) survey of the state of the practice, 3) summary of recent safety analyses, and 4) a human factors nighttime study of the impact of wider and brighter edge line pavement markings. The results show that states are increasing their use of wider edge lines, and safety studies are beginning to show evidence supporting the use of wider edge lines for two-lane highways. The human factors study included surrogate safety measures, such as lateral placement, edge line encroachments, and driver eye glance patterns. The results from these metrics all support positive safety findings. Pavement marking brightness had less of an impact than pavement marking width on these operational metrics. In this study, there was no attempt to relate pavement marking retroreflectivity to safety. The researchers recommend the use of wider pavement markings on two-lane highways with additional experimentation to verify the benefits described in this report.