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(somber music)
(graphics swishing)

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- [Narrator] The Texas
Department of Transportation

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continuously looks at ways
to improve roadway safety.

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This includes operating to be in line

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with federal requirements to
reduce wet weather accidents.

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Working with the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute,

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TxDOT is looking at how to
reduce these types of accidents

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by focusing on the road's pavement.

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- So currently during the design phase,

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the designers consider many aspects

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that can affect the overall
safety of the roadway,

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and one of these
considerations is materials.

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- There are several things that affect

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why a person may have an
accident in wet weather,

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and so we look at the
condition of the pavement

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and how the car interacts with it.

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So currently, TxDOT has a program set up

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to select the aggregate
that's used on the surface.

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In an effort to be more efficient

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and effective in the use of
how the aggregate is selected,

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we wanted to take and merge
the aggregate selection

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with a Safer By Design tool.

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- So when the pavement is wet,

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we want to avoid it being
slippery while we're driving.

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So the selection of the aggregate used

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to build the pavement is critical
since the aggregate plays

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a key role in the interaction
between the vehicle tires

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and the pavement surface.

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- So one of the tasks was to develop

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a risk assessment procedure,

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and we were able to do
that based on an analysis

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of the crash records that
the DPS provides to TxDOT.

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We looked at the pavement condition data

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that TxDOT collects annually.

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We looked at weather data,

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and we combined all that
in order to develop a risk

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based on the pavement condition

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to the potential to have a crash,

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and so when we go through

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and we select the pavement
surfacing that we need,

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we can do it on a risk-based assessment.

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- For the next steps,
we're going to use results

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from an ongoing project 0-7151

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and will be included
into the framework setup

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by this project to better
predict the pavement friction

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and risk of wet weather accidents.

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- We recognize that in wet
weather we need to slow down

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and be more careful, and because of that,

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we have to look at the
condition on the road,

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and we wanna make sure that
the road is not slippery.

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An important part of that is
the interaction with the tire

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and the pavement surface.

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TxDOT was very supportive of us.

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They provided us all of
the data that we needed

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to do the analysis,

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and they were very active in
reviewing what we were doing

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as we progressed, and they
were very helpful to us.

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- And the most important results

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of this project was
definitely the development

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of risk levels for the
pavement friction in relation

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to minimizing wet weather
accidents with the main goal

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to make the road safer
to the traveling public.

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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.