Enhancing construction truck safety at work zones: A microscopic traffic simulation study

Abstract

Freeway work zones are generally considered dangerous, causing hundreds of fatalities every year. One significant task of work zone safety issue is how to manage construction trucks egress from work zones. Previous studies have been conducted to improve truck egress safety at work zones, yet few proactive safety engineering countermeasures have been implemented which might have significant effects. In this study, a microsimulation network of freeway work zone interval is built and calibrated using field data in Florida. The safety impact of work zone truck egress speed is investigated based on the simulation model, and the results indicate that it is significant to provide sufficient acceleration distance for trucks when egressing. Afterwards, the truck egress system (TES) that aims at providing a sufficient gap for trucks to merging into when egress from the work zone is developed. Then, the truck egress process is simulated with different parameter settings of TES under various traffic volumes. The results show that the introduction of TES improved safety, and the optimal settings for different traffic volume scenarios are recommended afterwards considering both safety and efficiency. The findings of this study could help practitioners understand the effect of the TES before implementing it in the real field.