Road surface marking

Road surface marking is any kind of device or material that is used on a road surface in order to convey official information; they are commonly placed with road marking machines (also referred to as road marking equipment or pavement marking equipment). They can also be applied in other facilities used by vehicles to mark parking spaces or designate areas for other uses. In some countries and areas (France, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia etc.), road markings are conceived as horizontal traffic signs, as opposed to vertical traffic signs placed on posts.

Road surface markings are used on paved roadways to provide guidance and information to drivers and pedestrians. Uniformity of the markings is an important factor in minimising confusion and uncertainty about their meaning, and efforts exist to standardise such markings across borders. However, countries and areas categorise and specify road surface markings in different ways—white lines are called white lines mechanical, non-mechanical, or temporary. They can be used to delineate traffic lanes, inform motorists and pedestrians or serve as noise generators when run across a road, or attempt to wake a sleeping driver when installed in the shoulders of a road. Road surface marking can also indicate regulations for parking and stopping.

There is continuous effort to improve the road marking system, and technological breakthroughs include adding retroreflectivity, increasing longevity, and lowering installation cost.

Today, road markings are used to convey a range of information to the driver spanning navigational, safety and enforcement issues leading to their use in road environment understanding within advanced driver-assistance systems and consideration for future use in autonomous road vehicles.

Mechanical devices may be raised or recessed into the road surface, and either reflective or non-reflective. Most are permanent; some are movable.

Sometimes the result of roadwork may leave visible marks on the pavements. An example is the dowel bar retrofit process to reinforce concrete slabs in order to extend the life of older concrete pavements. The completion of the process leaves a symmetrical pattern of dash marks on the roadway, as if there were an associated meaning to the pattern. When there are many of them along the roadway, motorists may interpret the marks as an unknown form of mechanical markers or strange road surface markings. When roads are under construction and the lanes are shifted laterally, those marks may interfere with temporary lane markings. As the marks from the dowel bar retrofit are not intended to be any form of road surface markings, the responsible agencies try to make these marks less visible to the motorists.

Some municipalities require contractors to install utility repair tags to identify responsible parties of the patches that fill utility cuts. The colour-coded tags are visible on the road surface.

Paint, sometimes with additives such as retroreflective glass beads, is generally used to mark travel lanes. It is also used to mark spaces in parking lots or special purpose spaces for disabled parking, loading zones, or time-restricted parking areas. Colours for these applications vary by locality. Paint is a low-cost marking and has been in widespread use since approximately the early 1950s.