This paper was presented at the "Designing and building safer roads" workshop. These proceedings are available on CD-ROM. Improving road safety through proper and timely pavement maintenance should be one of the major objectives of a pavement management system. When pavements are evaluated in terms of safety, a number of factors related to pavement engineering properties exist, such as pavement geometrics, paving materials and mix design, pavement surface texture properties, pavement color and visibility. Each year there are voluminous annual reports and discussions on road safety issues, such as a traffic accident statistics summary, road safety modeling, pavement safety measurements and criteria, etc. While, road safety may be considered as a distinct entity, it should be incorporated into pavement management systems. This paper first identifies the main components of pavement engineering relationships associated with road accident occurences. It then discusses all aspects of road safety factors related mainly to pavement maintenance management, such as pavement types, pavement surface macrotexture and microtexture, pavement safety measurements, criteria and evaluation methods. The paper proposes a systematic approach to coordinating pavement maintenance programs with road safety improvement, and incorporating conventional accident statistic reports with safety prediction of the pavement future condition and maintenance strategy analysis. Finally, the paper recommends a list of possible remedial measures of road safety improvements associated with pavement maintenance activites. (A)
Abstract