The report reviews the effects of road surface type and condition on safety, vehicle operating costs and noise generation. Wet weather accident occurrence is affected by skid resistance, which depends on both micro texture and macro texture. Car rolling resistance, and hence fuel consumption, increases with short wave length roughness, mega texture, and macro texture. For the roughness levels expected on a maintained, surfaced network, the effects of texture are about the same as the effects of roughness. Heavy truck rolling resistance is affected by roughness and pavement stiffness, but there is wide variation in the reported magnitude of the pavement stiffness effect. Macrotexture with wavelengths less than 10 mm serves to reduce road surface noise, whereas surface texture with wavelengths greater than 10 mm serves to increase surface noise. Practical advice is provided on the surface characteristics which will provide good skid resistance and low rolling resistance and surface noise generation. (Author/publisher)
Abstract