The research documented in this report was conducted as part of the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Evaluation of Low-Cost Safety Improvements Pooled Fund Study (ELCSI–PFS). FHWA established this pooled fund study in 2005 to conduct research on the effectiveness of the safety improvements identified by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program Report 500 guides as part of implementation of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Strategic Highway Safety Plan. The ELCSI-PFS research provides a crash modification factor and benefit-cost economic analysis for each of the targeted safety strategies identified as priorities by the pooled fund member States.

The wet-reflective pavement markings evaluated in this study are intended to reduce the frequency of crashes by improving the level of retroreflectivity during wet-road conditions. Geometric, traffic, and crash data were obtained for freeway sections in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wisconsin; treated two-lane rural road locations in Minnesota; and treated multilane road sections in Wisconsin. For freeways, the combined results for all States indicate
reductions in crashes for injury and wet-road crashes. For multilane roads, significant reductions were estimated for total crashes, injury crashes, run-off-road crashes, wet-road crashes, and nighttime crashes. The results suggest that the treatment, even with conservative assumptions about cost, service life, and the value of a statistical life, can be cost effective