Summary

Timely rehabilitation/reconstruction of aging highway sections is vital to maintain a safe, reliable and efficient highway network. Many California highways, the majority of which was built more than thirty years ago, have exceeded their design life, been exposed to heavier traffic volumes and loads than they were originally designed for, and therefore deteriorated significantly. Most of these highways need major rehabilitation/reconstruction at various locations in the coming decade. Among the approximately 2,800 lane-km of the state highway network to be rebuilt in the next ten year period, most of the candidate sites are in heavily traveled urban corridors of Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. Since these construction activities are likely to significantly reduce the capacity of already "capacity hungry" roadways, the optimal decision of their planning, design and operation must carefully weigh all the incurred costs, including both construction costs and user costs (e.g., delays caused by reduction of capacity), for which traffic analysis methods and tools are needed to quantify these user costs of various types of construction activities and help design effective traffic management strategies to reduce these costs.

1. Review current construction zone traffic management practices in California and elsewhere from several perspectives, including methods used, data needs, reliability, ease of use, user satisfaction, and limitations in assumptions. Identify the key elements of best practice.
2. Analyze construction zone traffic data (flow, delay, diversion, controls, etc) to study traveler behavioral response to various work zone traffic management strategies, such as media campaign, CMS, and integrated freeway/arterial control, and develop models to more accurately predict the demand shifts (to alternative route, modes, and departure times, including canceling a trip), which are critical input to estimate delays and design effective management strategies as well.
3. Develop a hierarchical approach for quickly assessing the network wide impact of a particular construction plan, and optimization tools to help design effective work zone traffic management strategies, particularly diversion planning, and integrated control of signals and ramp meters to mitigate construction induced congestion.
4. Apply the developed models and tools to two candidate projects to demonstrate their usage and evaluate their performance.