Background and Purpose
FHWA began the WZ SA in 2003 and conducts the assessment annually. In 2009, each FHWA Division Office was asked to re-examine and update the results of its 2008 WZ SA, working with transportation agency staff from its State partner. Each Division Office had the option of performing a simple update or a more in-depth reassessment. A simple update would focus on revising past scores to reflect current practices based on observations and an ongoing knowledge of work zone practices. For a more in-depth reassessment, the WZ SA is conducted as a group exercise and involves a structured discussion among stakeholders to develop consensus ratings for each of the questions.
While the WZ SA score provides a metric for measurement, the most important information is derived from the discussions conducted among the participants. The interchange among stakeholders provides an opportunity for an agency to identify specific areas for improvement and provides the basis for structuring approaches to improve work zone policies, programs, and practices.
The WZ SA is intended to help agencies identify areas of strength and areas for improvement and to then use that information to identify needs and gaps in practices that could benefit from additional focus. While a goal of the WZ SA is to identify opportunities for improvement, the "next step" is to identify techniques and actions that can fill those gaps to improve upon current work zone operations.
The WZ SA consists of six primary assessment areas and a set of five supplemental questions. The six primary areas are:
- Section 1: Leadership and Policy
- Section 2: Project Planning and Programming
- Section 3: Project Design
- Section 4: Project Construction and Operation
- Section 5: Communications and Education
- Section 6: Program Evaluation
Each assessment area contains a set of questions about a particular work zone related policy, strategy, process, or tool. For each question, respondents were asked to evaluate the extent to which a particular practice has been incorporated into an agency’s way of doing business. The questions in each section were rated according to the level of adoption phase, using a scale of 0 to 15 that is broken into a set of five progressive levels based on the quality improvement process model used by industry. A score of 7 or more on a question signifies that a State is implementing/executing the item in that question. Definitions for each of the rating levels are shown in Appendix A. Several questions in the WZ SA are based on the magnitude of impact that a project may have on a particular area. These project types (Types I through IV) are also described in Appendix A.
In order to assess how States' practices may have changed as a result of the Work Zone Safety and Mobility Rule (deadline for implementation was October 12, 2007), the following five supplemental questions were added in 2008 and revisited in 2009:
- While planning and designing road projects, the agency is expanding planning beyond the project work zone itself to address corridor, network, and regional issues (e.g., alternate routes and/or modes, truck traffic, special events, etc.) - particularly when congestion is an issue.
- The agency is seeing enhanced consideration and management of work zone safety and mobility impacts, starting during planning and continuing through project completion.
- The agency is expanding work zone management beyond traffic safety and control to address mobility through the consideration and use of transportation operations and public information strategies.
- As a result of its work zone policy, the agency is using a more consistent approach to planning, designing, and constructing road projects.
- The agency has updated/changed training for its staff (designers, planners, construction staff, etc.) to address broader consideration of work zone impacts and management in the scheduling, design, and implementation of projects.
States were asked to select from one of the following five responses on how the Rule has changed their practices:
The Rule Has Caused Change:
- The agency has significantly experienced this as a result of the Rule.
- The agency has somewhat experienced this as a result of the Rule.
The Rule Has NOT Caused Change:
- This was already taking place prior to the Rule and has not changed since the Rule was implemented.
- This was not taking place prior to the Rule and is still not occurring.
Other:
- It is too early to tell if the Rule has caused this to occur (but I might know later).
