摘要: |
As previously reported in Highways (March 2021), National Highways (then Highways England) in partnership with Roadcare and Kier has been working on a £685,000 international road marking innovation competition over the Last few years. The results are now in and published in Transforming Road Markings Competition -Final Report. The traditional method for developing new road marking products in the UK is on-road testing, though no such tests have been carried out for at least 10 years - a bone of contention we will return to. This means the competition is the first to be based on typical open texture surfaces, now found on the majority of the strategic road network (SRN), because no on-road tests were carried out since the transition from hot rolled asphalt - making it the first large scale study of how modern road markings react with typical road surfaces". National Highways' competition consisted of three stages: 1) high speed turntable testing; 2) on-road testing; and 3) removal trials. It aimed to identify the 'current best performing road markings' as well as the best removal systems to prevent 'ghost markings' and harm to the pavement surface, 'as over-aggressive techniques can result in early surface failure'. |