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(text whooshing)

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- [Narrator] Severe weather
can happen quickly in Texas,

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making wet weather crashes
a concern statewide.

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It highlights a need for pavements

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with adequate skid resistance
during these conditions.

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The Center for Transportation Research

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and the Texas Department of Transportation

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look to enhance the current
methods of measuring resistance

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with the goal of improving
safety for all drivers.

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- A few years back,
Federal Highway reported

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that about 16% of all crashes

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happen during wet weather conditions,

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while 13% of all crash fatalities

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happen during wet weather conditions.

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So that highlights how
important this problem is

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and how important is for State DOTs

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to have a proper friction management plan.

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- So, we had a preliminary sample data

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from the previous research
project that shows promising,

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like correlation between the measurement

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to the skid numbers.

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And with this implementation project,

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the research team was
able to collect more data

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on different pavement type,

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on the different surface characteristics,

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different mix type, and
different age of the pavement,

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so they can develop
more comprehensive model

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of those relationships.

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- In the US, most State
DOTs use the so-called

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locked wheel trailer to measure friction.

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The point with this system,
while it's very effective,

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because it measures friction very well,

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is very inefficient because it
needs large amount of water.

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So what we did during this project,

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we developed a high-definition,
high-speed laser scanner

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that allows us to scan the
surface of the pavement

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at highway speed and produce
very high-definition profile

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of the pavements.

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- The research team spend a lot of effort

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to collecting more data,

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which covers different geographic region,

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different surface type, different
age, different mix types.

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And then once the data collected

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and going back to the office,

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pulling those data together

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using AI and machine learning

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to develop the models.

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- The advantage of this, of
what is the impact of this

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is, now, by having full
coverage every year,

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TxDOT can spot these so-called hotspots,

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which are sections of low texture,

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which are the ones that have potential

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for wet weather crashes,

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and then they can fix it immediately

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and reduce the potential number of crashes

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in a significant manner.

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- The safety is the number
one priority for TxDOT,

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and this research project
and develop a model,

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which correlate texture
to the skid numbers,

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that closed the gap for
us to be able to identify

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the hotspot which potentially
showing low skid resistance.

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- [Narrator] For more information

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and to find the publication
for this project,

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please visit the TxDOT Research Library

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at the link shown below.