Developing the New Barrier Condition Index (BCI) to Unify theBarrier Assessments - A Case Study in Wind River IndianReservation, Wyoming

Abstract: Based on the statistics, roadsides include a considerable portion of the fatal crashes annually. Barrier systems are one ofthe important components of roadside that plays a key role in mitigating the severity of these crashes and save more lives. Despite thesubstantial role of barrier systems, unfortunately, there is no unified rating system in the barrier condition assessments to utilize forthe optimization of the improvements. As the primary contribution in this study, a new Barrier Condition Index (BCI) was proposedto unify the barrier assessment studies to use the same reference for rating barrier systems. This fact makes the decision-makers ableto establish a prioritized ranking for optimizing the barrier improvements. For this purpose, the research investigated acomprehensive list of damages in barrier systems. Then, appropriate coefficients were given to the damage types based on theireffects on the performance of the system reviewing the previous works. To show the practicability of the new BCI as an example forthe whole procedure of the assessment, six different barrier systems located in Wind River Indian Reservation (WRIR), Wyoming,were also evaluated in the study. Based on the evaluation done, the BCI was used to rank the performance of the barriers. Three ofthe barrier segments at WRIR was introduced as the high-severity level which should be considered in the first priority of theimprovement phase