IMPROVING PAVEMENT MARKING REFURBISHMENT IN BROOKLYN

The New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) is responsible for installing and maintaining over 200 million linear feet of pavement markings, which are used on paved roadways to direct and inform drivers and pedestrians, and ensuring that the pavement markings are in a state of good repair in order to maintain the safe, efficient, and environmentally responsible transportation of people and goods. NYC DOT utilizes a predictive model to identify, inspect, and refurbish worn markings on a subset of city streets. Currently, only 70 percent of locations predicted to be worn are ready for refurbishment, and 14 percent of the agency’s refurbishment work is done on locations not predicted to be worn. NYC DOT tasked the Capstone team with improving the predictive model with refined criteria to increase its accuracy and efficiency in Brooklyn. The Capstone team recommended refining current factors, such as using the paint application month, instead of year, of previous markings, and adding potential new factors including snow plow use, street flooding, concentrations of construction sites, and environmental factors.