Optimizing Future Work Zones in New England for Improved Safety and Mobility

US Transportation Collection2018PDFTech ReportXie, YuanchangGartner, Nathan H.Stamatiadis, PolichronisRen, TianzhuSalcedo, GustavoUniversity of Massachusetts at Amherst. Department of Civil and Environmental EngineeringNew England Transportation ConsortiumUniversity of Vermont. Transportation Research CenterUnited States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway AdministrationNew England Transportation ConsortiumNew EnglandUnited StatesData analysisDriving simulatorsMerging controlMobilitySpeed controlVirtual realityWork zone safetyWork zone traffic controlNaturalistic Driving Study DatabaseSurrogate Safety Assessment ModelVISSIM (Computer model)NETC 14-4, NETCR104Final reportThis study addresses two critical aspects of highway work zone traffic operations, mobility and safety, by focusing on speed control and merge control strategies. It innovatively utilizes the Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) data for analyzing work zone crash and near-crash events characteristics, and generates useful insights into how crashes and near crashes develop and occur in highway work zones. It also develops and applies a Virtual Reality (VR) based driving simulator for investigating work zone speed control strategies. Additionally, this study proposes a New England Merge (NEM) control that demonstrates promising mobility and safety performance based on VISSIM simulation and Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM) analysis results. The proposed NEM can be readily implemented when all vehicles are connected and automated. Without connected and autonomous vehicles, this method is still practical given driver compliance and proper law enforcements, which are also required by the well-known early merge and late merge strategies that have been field implemented.143