Effectiveness of Thermoplastic Transverse Rumble Strips on a Two-lane Rural Highway

Abstract

This study was aimed to investigate tactile and audible warning produced by different configuration of transverse rumble strips (TRSs) installed on a two-lane highway. The eighteen different patterns of rumble strips with different thickness, width of each strips, and gap between strips, were examined. The rumble strips were tested with a test vehicle, which was a pickup truck, at different speeds. It was found that as speed of vehicles passing over the TRSs increase, the roadside sound and in-vehicle sound also increase. On the other hand, changes in in-vehicle vibration decrease as vehicle speed increase. Considering the thickness of TRSs, thicker TRSs caused bigger change in in-vehicle sound and in-vehicle vibration. The Department of Rural Roads’ (DOR) configuration TRSs seem to provide adequate in-vehicle sound difference and in-vehicle vibration difference for driver to be clearly notified. In comparison with DOR’s configuration TRSs, the TRSs with 25 cm-gap (W10G25T0.5) seems to be more efficient in terms of speed reduction and making larger change in in-vehicle vibration.