Air Quality Benefits of Nighttime Construction in Texas Non-Attainment Counties--Technical Report.

2017PDFTech ReportFHWA/TX-17/0-6864-1Project 0-6864Road constructionWork zone safetyHighway safetyWork zone traffic controlExhaust gasesEmissions reductionNonattainment areasNighttime ConstructionEmissionsNonattainment CountiesNational Ambient Air Quality StandardsClean Air Act AmendmentsDecision-Support FrameworkAir Quality ImpactsTexasUnited StatesTexas. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Technology Implementation OfficeFarzaneh, RezaRamani, TaraVenugopal, MadhusudanVallamsundar, SuriyaPesti, GezaCrawford, JasonBirt, AndrewGu, ChaoyiAskariyeh, MohammadValdez, GabrielShelton, JeffFinley, Melisa D.Sharma, SushantJohnson, JeremyHuch, RobertWood, NickTexas A&M Transportation InstituteTexas. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Technology Implementation OfficeUnited States. Federal Highway AdministrationThe practice of performing some work zone activities at night has existed in the United States since at least the 1960s. Night work is most commonly initiated where it is impractical to close traffic lanes on certain high-volume roadways during normal daylight hours. Currently, there is no comprehensive evaluation of the changes in emissions associated with moving construction activities to the nighttime. It is commonly expected that when construction activities are shifted to the nighttime, reduced congestion levels could result in fewer vehicle emissions. The extent and scale of this impact has not been studied in detail. This research project investigated the air quality impacts of nighttime construction through case studies and developed a decision-support framework to help the stakeholders put the findings on air quality impacts in the larger context of other factors that are of importance when making a decision to pursue nighttime construction. [Note: The original report, published in October 2017, has been superseded by this version of the report, published in December 2017, due to error corrections. If you need access to the original report, please contact NTL at https://transportation.libanswers.com/