Work Zone Mobility and Safety Program
Photo collage: temporary lane closure, road marking installation, cone with mounted warning light, and drum separated work zones.
Office of Operations 21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies

Best Practice

Main Guidebook > Find a Practice > Best Practice Categories > Traveler and Traffic Information (Project Related)

BEST PRACTICE:

H2-5: Work Zone Performance Monitoring (WZPM) Tool

DESCRIPTION:

The Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) and the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory (CATT Lab) developed a real-time performance monitoring tool known as the Work Zone Performance Monitoring (WZPM) tool within the Regional Integrated Transportation Information System (RITIS) platform. The tool aggregates work zone information from many sources, including the SHA Coordinated Highway Action Response Team (CHART) system, and determines a user delay cost based on measured average daily traffic (ADT), speed reduction factors, heavy truck percentages and delays developed from the RITIS live feeds. This tool helps measure work zone performance and validates incremental changes made to work zone practices.

REASON(S) FOR ADOPTING:

This system is useful for real-time monitoring of work zone performance and can also be used for higher-level review of work zone management policy or practice. It can also be used to verify that new policies or practices are effective in reducing congestion around work zones. The use of this system can be used to meet the requirements in the Final Rule on Work Zone Safety and Mobility for data driven management of work zone impacts. Additionally, the results of this system provide tools for discussion between agencies and the public.

PRIMARY BENEFIT(S):

The benefits of the WZPM tool include quantifiable information about work zone impacts on traffic and the tools to identify problematic aspects of work zones.

MOST APPLICABLE LOCATION(S)/PROJECT(S):

Work Zone Performance Monitoring can be used on any highway work zone that could impact traffic flow, though it is most useful for projects that generate congestion delays big enough to be picked up by probe data used by the live data feed.

STATE(S) WHERE USED:

Maryland

SOURCE/CONTACT(S):

Kayode Adenaiya, Maryland State Highway Administration
Phone: (410) 787-5864
E−mail: kadenaiya@sha.state.md.us
Office of Operations