New Handbook Offers Guidance for Installing of Shoulder and Center Line Rumble Strips on Non-Freeway Facilities

By: Cathy Satterfield, FHWA Office of Safety and Abdul Zineddin, FHWA Office of Safety R&D

Center line and shoulder rumble strips are proven safety countermeasures for reducing roadway departure crashes, including head-on crashes and run-off-road crashes, but not all roadways are good candidates for rumble strips. So how do practitioners know where rumble strips can be most advantageous for reducing roadway departures?

The Office of Safety and Office of Safety R&D developed the new Decision Support Guide for the Installation of Shoulder and Center Line Rumble Strips on Non-Freeways to provide a framework that will inform center line and shoulder rumble strip installation decisions. It describes methods for identifying appropriate locations for installation, assessing the potential crash reductions and benefit-cost ratio, and developing performance metrics for safety. In addition, the guide addresses special considerations for rumble strip installations – such as bicyclist activity, potential noise impacts, pavement quality, and maintenance activities. It also identifies variability in current practices.

The decision-support framework covers policy development for systematic rumble strip installation and provides a flowchart for decision-making for sites that can benefit from installation but do not meet criteria for systematic installation. The framework can also be applied to sites that are identified based on crash history, such as for Highway Safety Improvement Program selection. Within this framework, this guide describes who may be involved in the decision-making process and at what points those individuals’ inputs should be sought. It also provides an overview of safety performance measures that can be presented to policy makers and stakeholders. Performance metrics described in this guide can be used to inform stakeholders of rumble strip benefits.

For more information on applying rumble strips as a roadway departure countermeasure, please contact Cathy Satterfield at cathy.satterfield@dot.gov or Abdul Zineddin at abdul.zineddin@dot.gov.

This article has been shared from Rural Safety Center.