Due to limited budget, most transportation agencies restripe their thermoplastic pavement markings based on a fixed schedule or based on visual inspection instead of monitoring the retroreflectivity and restriping when the retroreflectivity drops below a pre-determined threshold. These strategies are questionable in terms of efficiency and economy. Therefore, previous studies proposed degradation models to predict the retroreflectivity of thermoplastic markings based on key variables. Yet, most of these studies reported low R2 (as low as 0.1), which placed little confidence in these models. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate and predict the field performance of thermoplastics and to propose cost-effective restriping strategies for thermoplastics used in hot and humid climate service conditions. To achieve this objective, National Transportation Product Evaluation Program (NTPEP) data were mined and analyzed. Results indicated that the service life (SL) of thermoplastics ranged between 0.4 and 12.1 years (according to the initial retroreflectivity, traffic, and surface type) with an average value of 3.4 ± 0.2 years. Four regression models with relatively high accuracy were developed to predict the SL of thermoplastics based on key variables. In addition, the genetic algorithm was used to develop a model that predicts the future retroreflectivty of these pavement markings. The predicted values were compared against actual retroreflectivity measurements collected from a field experiment at Louisiana State University. The results of this study could be used to make effective decisions related to restriping scheduling. Using the proposed models in restriping scheduling can result in considerable cost savings (up to $8,212 per lane-mile), as compared to the conventional restriping strategy.

Tran-SET Project: 21BLSU11