Work Zone Mobility and Safety Program

Suggested Future Work

This report highlights benefits from five deployments of ITS for work zone traffic management. Some benefits from these deployments were qualitative, such as enhanced coordination within and outside of an agency for work zone impact mitigation and greater public satisfaction with the work zone. Other benefits were quantitative such as a percentage reduction in traffic during congested periods, lower delay, and increased safety from automated traffic management. The sites showed benefits resulting from trying new techniques such as ITS to help mitigate the overall impacts caused by work zones. Agencies interested in new tools to combat work zone congestion and safety issues will benefit from the results included in this report.

Several areas can benefit from additional research and investigation. These areas for action are highlighted in the following list.

  • Investigate the impacts on alternate routes – Many ITS applications focus on using corridor level capacity to alleviate mainline congestion. Studies are often limited to data collection on the mainline only due to increased cost and difficulty in determining when to collect data (such as travel times using probe vehicles) on alternates. Quantifying corridor-level impacts will be useful for practitioners.
  • Investigate the potential for traffic simulation for ITS – Some models could be used to estimate potential benefits from ITS designs, similar to modeling alternative traffic control plans. Further investigation into this as a tool would be useful.
  • Research thresholds for system activation – Different systems operate based on unique parameters. Further research into appropriate system activation metrics and thresholds, along with guidance for vendors and practitioners on how to set thresholds, will be useful for this industry.
  • Develop training for planning and deployment of ITS for work zones – A training course would be useful to practitioners who are interested in deployment but don't know where to start. The course should cover all aspects and provide practitioners with an opportunity to perform exercises in planning for a deployment.

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