Effect of pavement marking contrast on the performance of vision-based lane departure warning systems

This paper investigates the effects of the colors of pavement and lane marking on the performance of a lane departure warning system. The performance of the system was tested on highway sections of different facility types and with pavements and markings of varying types and attributes in Texas and Florida. The results presented in this paper indicate that the tested lane departure warning system was not able to detect the yellow markings for some highway segments with light concrete and asphalt pavement colors in daylight conditions. It was found, based on analyses of the digital images taken of the pavement markings and the background pavement surfaces, that the inability to detect the yellow markings can be related to measures of the marking and pavement colors.