LAUSR

ABSTRACT The wheel tracks on highways are excessively concentrated and lead to rutting on asphalt pavements, which reduces the service life of highway pavements. A new method is proposed, which uses the visual intervention of pavement markings to redistribute the wheel track and adopts a three-stage process to relieve the stress caused by axial load concentration. This method is more suitable for existing highway pavements because the cost is considerably less than that of repaving. We first conducted preliminary experiments to determine the optimum design of pavement marking, and the driving safety was found to be at an acceptable level based on the steering behaviour and vehicle acceleration analysis. Second, field tests of the method on an operational highway are carried out, and the transverse offset of the wheel track is analysed using the video analysis technique. Based on the field test results, the visual intervention is proven to shift the wheel track concentration area effectively to relieve the rutting problem, without compromising driving safety. Hence, the proposed transverse visual intervention method has the potential to prolong the asphalt pavement service life by 16–31%, which has been demonstrated in a companion (Part II) paper based on a finite element simulation.