MAP Brief Summer 2026 - Noise Impacts of Pavement Surface Characteristics

Introduction

This Moving Advancements into Practice (MAP) brief is part one of a two-part series addressing the impacts of concrete pavement surface characteristics. Part one focuses on noise impacts, and part two will focus on ride quality impacts, including textures, equipment, friction, and safety.

Concrete Surface Types

Up until the late 1960s, many of the concrete roadways constructed in the United States used a burlap drag texture. This type of texture provided a quiet pavement and proved useful when speeds and traffic volumes were low. However, as highway speeds and traffic volumes increased, friction became a growing concern. In 1979, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) began requiring transverse tining for roadways posted above 40 mph with Technical Advisory T5140.10. This decision led to the widespread adoption of uniform transverse tining on concrete pavements in the United States, which persisted as the primary texture until the 2000s, when communities began experiencing noise issues due to increased traffic volumes. Regularly spaced transverse grooves can produce tonal spikes at frequencies around 1,000 Hz. This tonal property is referred to as tire whine and is an artifact of the transverse groove geometry, not the concrete itself.

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