Date of Award

Fall 12-15-2023

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Open-Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Civil Engineering

Advisor

Mohammadali Shirazi

Second Committee Member

Per Garder

Third Committee Member

Eric Landis

Abstract

Among all traffic collisions, lane departure crashes are the leading type of serious traffic crashes in Maine, comprising 72% of state-wide traffic fatalities. To reduce these crashes, Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) installed shoulder and centerline rumble strips on roadways to prevent lane departure crashes in Maine. With a total installed length of 1503 miles of rumble strips, specifically 511 miles of centerline rumble strips in bidirectional and undivided rural two-lane roadways, there is a need to understand the impact of rumble strips in reducing lane departure crashes. In this thesis, observational before-after studies with two methods: comparison group, and empirical Bayes (EB) comparison group were used to explore the effectiveness of centerline rumble strips in reducing head-on and opposite sideswipe crashes for rural two-lane roadways and compute crash modification factors (CMFs) in Maine. The evaluation investigated the impact of centerline rumble strips on reducing the total and fatal and injury head-on and sideswipe collisions on rural-two lane roadways. The economic benefits of using rumble strips are also explored by using a benefit-cost analysis. This study finds that the installations of centerline rumble strips are associated with reductions between 28% and 48% of head on and opposite sideswipe collisions on rural two-lane roads. In addition, the rumble strips are a cost-effective countermeasure with the benefits being at least 14 times the costs for the same road facility type.

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