In-Service Performance Evaluation of Guardrail End Treatments (2018) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 104-118
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From page 104... ...
5 Conclusions and Recommendations The committee was asked to develop a research design for evaluating the inservice crash performance of guardrail end treatments, determine the data required to carry out the analysis, examine data systems in selected states to determine whether the required data would be available, and identify appropriate next steps for carrying out such evaluations. Defining the objectives of evaluation in terms of the intended applications of the evaluation results is the necessary first step in developing an evaluation method.
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From page 105... ...
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 105 • Evaluation of roadside safety devices other than guardrail end treatments, • Evaluation objectives, and • Evaluation methods. Need for In-Service Evaluation In-service evaluation can help to ensure the effectiveness of roadside safety devices and reduce the risk of road injuries and fatalities.
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From page 106... ...
106 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF GUARDRAIL END TREATMENTS are consistent with the conclusions of past investigations and with the scarcity of published reports of highway agency evaluations. Reasons for not undertaking evaluations cited in the interviews were as follows: • Limitations of agency data systems (e.g., the systems do not support linking of crash, maintenance, and asset inventory records; no record is made of the postcrash condition of devices)
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From page 107... ...
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 107 Evaluation of Roadside Safety Devices Other Than Guardrail End Treatments In-service evaluation is equally justified for all roadside safety devices now evaluated through crash testing. Uncertainty about the reliability of crash testing as an indicator of performance in service applies equally to any of the roadside devices for which the MASH provides a testing procedure, including longitudinal barriers, crash cushions, guardrail end treatments, and support structures such as sign supports, mailbox supports, and luminaire supports.
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From page 108... ...
108 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF GUARDRAIL END TREATMENTS 2. Routine state highway agency in-service evaluation of roadside devices for applications such as monitoring the agency's inventory of roadside devices to ensure proper conditions, planning costeffective maintenance and replacement, and checking that newly adopted devices are performing as expected.
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From page 109... ...
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 109 in mitigating crash severity or have advantages with respect to life-cycle costs or ease of installation and maintenance. The bestperforming device type may depend on the characteristics of the location.
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From page 110... ...
110 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF GUARDRAIL END TREATMENTS end treatment crashes (Joint AASHTO-FHWA Task Force on Guardrail Terminal Crash Analysis 2015) , the FHWA pilot end treatment in-service evaluation begun in 2016 (FHWA n.d.)
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From page 111... ...
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 111 Validation of Crash Test Procedures The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S.
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From page 112... ...
112 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF GUARDRAIL END TREATMENTS a set of crash records from whatever sources were readily available, without consideration of representativeness. This approach was reasonable for the exploratory objectives of these activities but is not satisfactory for producing credible quantitative estimates of frequency and outcomes of various categories of crashes.
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From page 113... ...
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 113 designs to reduce casualty risk. Similarly, if it is found that outcomes of actual crashes matching test circumstances differ from test outcomes, then the research program should identify changes in testing procedures to improve agreement.
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From page 114... ...
114 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF GUARDRAIL END TREATMENTS cable alternatives for procedures for state-level data collection and analysis derived from the methods of NCHRP Report 490 (Ray et al.
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From page 115... ...
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 115 would provide a basis for deciding the appropriate scale and direction of future research on the problem. The exploratory analysis should begin with data collected for the crash test validation study recommended above.
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From page 116... ...
116 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF GUARDRAIL END TREATMENTS program: an extension of the charge and term of the AASHTO-FHWA Task Force on Guardrail Terminal Crash Analysis as a means of coordinating state and federal interests and resources and an AASHTO-led effort conducted through the National Cooperative Highway Research Program. The entity overseeing the evaluation program should first develop a plan that defines the objectives of evaluations (i.e., how the results will be applied in the management of the highway system)
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