A simplified skid resistance predicting model for a freeway network to be used in a pavement management system

ABSTRACT

The available skid resistance, or friction, in a pavement surface is a vital parameter for functional evaluations of roads due to its relation with crashes. Therefore, highway administrations must collect friction data on their road network to provide safe roads to users. Additionally, a prediction model that can forecast the available skid resistance in each road segment is necessary for an efficient pavement management system (PMS). The aim of this paper is to develop a skid resistance prediction model for the bituminous pavements of the motorway network of federal state of Bavaria, in Germany, with information that is typically available in a PMS: the Annual Average Daily Traffic , the Annual Average Daily Heavy Traffic , and the number of lanes in each segment. Despite its simplicity, with 6410 road segments of 2 and 3 lanes of the Bavarian motorway network, the model achieves a determination coefficient (R²) of 0.405. If information about the surface layer material is added, R² increases to 0.480. Consequently, apart from predicting the minimum available friction in each lane in a motorway, the study underlines the necessity that a PMS should contain the recommended elements and additional surface layer material, because the quality of the prediction improves.

KEYWORDS:

• Skid resistance
• friction
• pavement performance model
• pavement management system
• bituminous materials
• SKM

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wohnen, Bau and Verkehr for providing the data for this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

Data are available upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Erasmus+ KA107 – 2017 project for mobilities from UPV/EHU (Spain) to universities in United States, Morocco, Russian Federation and Kazakhstan; Erasmus+ HE Staff Mobility Agreement for Teaching – , and Erasmus+ KA107 – 2015 project for mobility from universities in the U.S.A., Canada, South Korea and Russia to the UPV/EHU (Spain)