Integrated Work Zone Traffic Management

Nonrecurrent traffic congestion caused by construction work constitutes a large proportion of traffic congestion on highways. In a previous project a comprehensive work zone traffic impact assessment procedure was developed using a series of state-of-the-art dynamic network analysis tools as building blocks and implemented it into a work zone traffic impact assessment software package called NetZone. This software package is capable of estimating time-dependent travel demand based on link counts, estimating demand reduction in response to work zone delay and various traffic management measures, showing traffic congestion level in the network over time, and providing network-wide traffic performance measures. In this project, the modeling functions of NetZone were improved with additional modeling elements such as HOV lanes. A full scale application of the improved NetZone, the evaluation of the Fix-I5 reconstruction project in the Sacramento Metropolitan Area, is presented. This demonstrates that one can use NetZone to study a large network in a fraction of the time needed to use a micro-simulation package for the same network. The developed methods and tools can help better plan and operate construction activities on highways, and more effectively manage traffic to reduce travel delays.