Development of Methods for Determining Airport Pavement Marking Effectiveness

摘要

Paint markings on runways, taxiways, and ramps play an important role in preventing runway incursions. Paint markings, however, deteriorate in terms of their conspicuity and must be replaced over time. Presently, the conspicuity is determined by visual inspections of segments of these markings, but the validity of these inspections cannot always be confirmed. This study was undertaken to develop a method for a quick and accurate evaluation of paint markings. A manual method was required for eliminating subjectivity in the current method, and an automated method was developed for evaluation of larger surface markings over a vast airport area. In addition, the study also established a threshold pass/fail limit for white and yellow paint. It was found that for the manual method, three devices are required: (1) a retro-reflectometer is required for determining retroreflectivity of the beads, (2) a spectrophotometer is required to determine whether or not the paint marking has faded out of tolerance, and (3) a transparent grid is used to determine coverage of the paint. If any one of these three tests fails, the pavement marking fails.