Preventing aquaplaning phenomenon through technical solutions The aquaplaning of a road vehicle occurs when a layer of water appears between the wheels of the vehicle and the road surface. The aquaplaning causes loss of wheel adherence, and results in a reduced vehicle control capability. The efficiency of technical solutions applied on standard roads is analysed using a dedicated computer software called the Pavement Surface Runoff Model. The paper places emphasis on the significance of constructing a good quality pavement-structure wearing course, its influence on traffic safety, and the correlation between geometric properties of road elements and the aquaplaning phenomenon.

The fatigue behaviour of bituminous layers must be taken into account when dimensioning road structures and projecting streets. To satisfy this fatigue criterion, laboratory tests must be used to determine the material characteristics and fatigue life of bituminous mixtures. The aim of this article is to study the crack initiation stage using a specific laboratory test: the two-point constant strain bending fatigue test on trapezoidal specimens. The laboratory tests were carried out on three types of bituminous mixes used in the wearing course, each containing successively two different types of bitumen (one imported and one Romanian). The conclusions drawn from this article refer to the influence of mix type and bitumen on the characteristics obtained.

The study of the behavior of bituminous mixtures is a very old subject in the specialized literature, many specialists in the field trying to explain the causes of the degradations, considering different factors. The bituminous mixtures were initially used in the construction of road structures for roads, so that a few years ago they also started to be used in the road structures of airport surfaces. The subject of the current research study is a priority worldwide and contributes, through the obtained results, to the enrichment of knowledge regarding the behavior of airport bituminous mixtures. The complexity of this study was based on the multitude of laboratory tests carried out on the designed airport bituminous mixture, BBA 16, using complex modern and high-performance equipment and equipment that lead to the determination of the stiffness modulus at different temperatures and frequencies both on trapezoidal samples and on prismatic samples.

As a result of the economic crisis of 2009-2010, the road traffic on the national road network, for the period 2011-2014, decreased considerably. Thus, the evolution coefficients, for the period 2020-2025, registered a trend of decrease in road traffic. Based on the analysis of the results of the automatic traffic records, it was found that the average daily average traffic increased by about 4.7% in 2016 compared to 2015 (the year of the last general circulation census) and is in continuous growth, one of the reasons being removal of car registration tax. In 2015, for the development of evolution coefficients and the rates of evolution of traffic on the national road network, the linear regression method was used which took into account both the evolution of road traffic reported in 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010, as well as the evolution of road traffic on the traffic counters network for the period 2010-2015. The paper analyzes aspects of the efficiency of the method used until the present and the need to develop coefficients and rates of evolution based on more complex methods, based on several economic and social indicators, including the projected evolution of GDP.

The primary motivation for undertaking this study was the challenge of highlighting and effectively integrating new digital mechanisms into efforts aimed at improving traffic safety across the road network. The adopted working strategy is based on the fundamental principle that any dataset containing a known reference position, regardless of its nature, can be spatially represented on a map and transformed into an overview that is significantly easier to visualize and interpret. This approach facilitates understanding among all stakeholders involved, irrespective of their level of specialization in traffic safety. By applying this strategy, the ultimate objective is to transform the manner in which specialists access and analyze decision-support information, enabling rapid—sometimes near real-time—assessment from any internet-connected device.

The paper presents the existing situation of automatic traffic recording systems located on the national road and motorway network in Romania, highlighting their technical and operational limitations, as well as the need to modernize and expand the traffic counter network. In addition, the implementation of an innovative vehicle counting and classification system based on the Raspberry Pi platform – VEKPI-count is developed and tested within a pilot project. The operating principles, technical and economic advantages of this system are presented, alongside comparative results obtained against conventional equipment currently in use. The results of the study indicate that the use of the VEKPI-count system leads to an improvement in the quality of traffic data and a reduction in classification errors, while providing a cost-effective solution for expanding the monitoring network. The large-scale implementation of such systems can significantly contribute to the analysis of the correlation of road accidents with road characteristics and to increasing traffic safety.