Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 295; Flight Crew Type 10000
Situational Awareness; Confusion; Distraction
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Airport; Company Policy; Human Factors
Following landing from an ILS approach; 500 foot ceilings and 2 miles visibility in moderate rain we turned left onto a taxiway and extinguished our landing lights; illuminated surface with taxi light. Original taxi plan was to proceed across the ramp once picking up the taxi lines to our parking gate. Upon landing; with the nose wheel still off to the left; I noticed a few sticks coming up from the ramp area ahead. It was dark and raining with puddles all over the ramp that reflected the extremely bright construction lights that are located to the northeast of our terminal; about two or three times as high as the terminal and directed out over the ramp area toward the runway.There was no information on the taxi diagram or in any of the NOTAMs that had given us any indication there was a modification to the taxi flows and no ramp detail depicting where I could expect the lines. I was unsure whether the sticks I saw to my left were preventing me from turning hard and funneling me further into the ram or something else; so I slowed to a near stop and as I centered the nose wheel. I saw a few more dark sticks; now directly in front of the aircraft. The First Officer said 'stop; stop; stop' which I did. Looking closer to the front of the aircraft I could barely make out the taxi lines leading to the left. I turned on all the Landing lights; which actually did little to improve our view; but as we turned to follow the taxi line to the hard left now; we could tell there was some sort of unprepared island with blue stick reflectors erected around the outline.Significant long-term modification to the surface of airport taxiways and ramps should be documented for all pilots to be aware. In most conditions 'see and avoid' would be adequate to prevent departure into such an undocumented hazard; but at night and or in rain with poor aircraft lighting and excessive temporary construction lighting; such undocumented and unlit obstructions to taxi pose an unmitigated and unacceptable level of risk to our operation. To address this; I recommend immediate issuance of a weather cover page note to pilots dispatched to RDU/with RDU as an alternate warning of the undocumented hazard; recommending extreme caution at night; utilizing taxiways A3 and A4; recommending use of all available aircraft lighting at night to help illuminate the obstacles; and pointing pilots to the airport information diagram for more information when that is issued. Issuance of an airport information page note to include diagram and pictures.  Issuance of a 10-8 modification to the 10-9 through Jeppesen release cycle to thoroughly document the hazard; including planned dates with any further significant changes to the taxi flows planned issued on separate 10-8 pages with planned dates.
An air carrier pilot reported insufficient documentation and ramp markings at RDU airport cause a hazard taxiing to parking across the ramp.