Evaluation of Current Repair Criteria for Longitudinal Barrier with Crash Damage
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 4
Abstract
To protect motorists and avoid tort liability, highway agencies expend considerable resources to repair damaged longitudinal barriers, such as w-beam guardrails. With limited funding available, though, highway agencies are unable to maintain all field-installed systems in the ideal as-built condition. Instead, these agencies focus on repairing only damage that has a detrimental effect on the safety performance of the barrier. The distinction between minor damage and more severe performance-altering damage, however, is not always clear. This paper presents a critical review of current U.S. and Canadian criteria on whether to repair damaged longitudinal barrier. Barrier repair policies were obtained via comprehensive literature review and a survey of U.S. and Canadian transportation agencies. In an analysis of the maintenance procedures of 40 states in the United States and 8 Canadian transportation agencies, fewer than one-third of highway agencies were found to have quantitative measures to determine when barrier repair is warranted. In addition, no engineering basis for the current U.S. barrier repair guidelines could be found. These findings underscore the importance of the development of quantitative barrier repair guidelines based on a strong technical foundation.
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Acknowledgments
This research was sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences under the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project 22-23, “Criteria for Restoration of Longitudinal Barrier.” The writers wish to acknowledge the guidance of Charles W. Niessner, program manager for NCHRP Project 22-23, as well as the insight of the project panel.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 4 • April 2009
Pages: 225 - 234
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Dec 19, 2007
Accepted: Oct 21, 2008
Published online: Apr 1, 2009
Published in print: Apr 2009
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