Machine-readability of road markings in the Nordic countries

• Are road markings good enough for future driving? Road markings are essential to ensure good driving conditions. Traditionally, the characterization of road marking has been standardized by visibility of human drivers. However, AV technology rely on a machine reading. This raises the question whether we need better road markings to meet future requirements with more and more automated vehicles. A Nordic project “Machine-readability of road markings in Nordic countries” aimed to examine how vehicles’ Lane departure warning (LDW) and lane keeping assist (LKA) are constructed, how they function and how they detect road markings. The aim was to provide road authorities necessary knowledge to set levels of maintenance and road marking quality, so AV-systems are remaining active and provide satisfactory guidance on different types of roads represented in the Nordic countries. This presentation summarizes the result of the projects empirical studies where the road marking quality was tested with AV technology and compared with data using traditionally equipment (Retroreflection). Data collection was carried out over a total road marking length of around 5800 km in both dry and wet conditions, and in both daylight and at night-time, and on varying types of roads with different types of road markings. Result of the data analyses showed that machine readability is very complex, there are many factors unrelated to road markings that influence whatever there is detection or not, and there was no clear relationship between machine-readability and conventional performance parameters. The analysis showed machine-readability was higher on multilane roads (99%) compared to on two-lane roads (93%), which may be explained by fewer curves on larger roads.  The main study data collection showed an overall high machine-readability (average 98%) on edge lines on motorways and 2+1 roads, irrespective of weather and light conditions. In the wet night-time condition, there was some difference between the flat Swedish lane lines and the profiled Danish lane lines on motorways but machine-readability was still high, 93% in Sweden and 98% in Denmark. The lowest machine-readability, 36%, was achieved in the wet night-time condition on small roads without center line. It is reasonable to believe that the road type had a large impact on machine-readability. 

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Transportteknik och logistik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Transport Systems and Logistics (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)