Development of Uniform Standards for Allowable Lane Closure

Procedures for determining allowable lane closure hours to perform maintenance, construction, resurfacing, regional permit and major access permit work on the state highway system were evaluated. The current process involves the collection of traffic volumes, consultation with local authorities and the reliance on previous knowledge of the roadway to develop allowable lane closing hours. This is an ad-hoc process that lacks uniformity and does not make use of traffic engineering basics to assess the impacts of lane closures. Thus, there is a need to develop a process for determining and modifying lane closures that will have uniformity and take into account effects on productivity and traffic delay. The major goals of this study include the development of a uniform process for lane closures that takes into account the impact of lane closure on traffic and productivity, and the adoption of this uniform process throughout the NJDOT. The QuickZone lane closure tool was selected for use with long term lane closures that require traffic diversion to alternate routes. The RILCA software was selected for analyzing the impacts of short-term lane closures.