preview

Work Zone Essay

Decent Essays

Regular maintenance, rehabilitation, reconstruction is required of highway infrastructure with increasing number of traffic. Hence, the vehicles traveling through roads encounter numerous work zones which affect driver speed characteristics. The work zone is a segment of a road which experiences some sort of construction, maintenance or utility work (1). According to Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Device, the work can be divided into four areas. In the beginning, the advance warning area used for informing traffic about downstream working zone. Followed by the transition area, that diverts traffic from their normal path to a guided path. The vehicles tend to exert different traffic maneuver in this zone which lead to conflict and increase …show more content…

In 2013, 579 work zone fatalities were recorded in the United States, which is about 2% of total roadway fatalities (2). Speed variations in construction zones are one of the main causes of these crashes since faster driving vehicles would have less reaction time and higher crash probability. Also non-compliance of speed restrictions on work zones had reduced the credibility of speed limits to road users. In addition to that, the speed reduction in work zone increases speed variation within and between lanes. Since speed differences are considered as an influencing factor for roadway collisions (3, 4, 5), the significance of proper conservation of speed restriction cannot be ignored. The importance of work zone speed limits has motivated many researchers to concentrate on speed characteristics in work zones and nearby area. Special concentration has been put on night-time work zone (NWZ) since the visibility and concentration are sometimes impaired during driving at night. Considering the significance of NWZ speed restrictions, this study focused on analyzing different traffic speed attributes and drivers’ compliance with posted speed limit in a freeway corridor that includes specific work zone during night. The increased understanding of drivers’ speed characteristics in NWZ areas will assist transportation authorities practice more practical speed restrictions in order to increase safety of workers as well as road

Get Access