Characteristics of the Work Zone Crashes

Work zone crashes have accounted for 9,900 fatalities in the United States in the last ten years. As the traffic demand on the highways is increasing, management of such traffic flows in work zones has become a challenging task for many highway agencies and understanding crash characteristics would be valuable for highway agencies in setting up proper traffic management plans at work zones based on the prevailing conditions. Accordingly, this study investigated characteristics of work zone crashes in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin, states currently included in the Smart Work Zone Deployment Initiative (SWZDI) region. Work zone crash data were obtained from respective departments of transportations and crash data from years 2002 to 2006 were considered in this study. The characteristics related to work zone crashes such as environmental conditions, vehicles, crashes, driver, and roadway factors were analyzed for the combined states. Results showed that most of the work zone crashes occurred under clear environmental conditions as during daylight, no adverse weather, etc. Multiple-vehicle crashes were more predominant than single-vehicle crashes in work zone crashes. Primary driver-contributing factors of work zone crashes were inattentive driving, following too close for conditions, failure to yield right of way, driving too fast for conditions, and exceeding posted speed limits within work zones. Middle aged drivers were more involved in work zone crashes and most of the work zone crashes lead to Property Damage Only (PDO) crashes. In order to find the relation between crash severity and other variables a test of independency was performed between them using chi-square test methodology.