Rumble strips have been installed on highway pavements to reduce vehicle collisions involving vehicles either running off road and/or crossing over centerlines. The rumbling effect may be understood in part as tactile inputs to waken inattentive and/or fatigue drivers. The tactile jerking effect, characterized by jerk intensity experienced by drivers, is analyzed for milled-in rumble strips with different geometric parameters using a quarter vehicle model. Our analysis shows that the optimal rumble strip width lies somewhere around 180 mm, and the ranges of the design parameters can be selected to control the jerking magnitude to alarm a driver in an errand vehicle. These parameter ranges are in part confirmed by experimental data reported in literature. This new rumble strip design strategy, practically more adaptable and effective, can be widely applied on highways of various functional classes. (Author/publisher)
Abstract