Estimation of Traffic Impacts at Work Zones: State of the Practice

Assessing the safety and mobility impacts of work zones across the project development phases of road construction and maintenance projects is an emphasis area of the Federal Highway Administration’s Final Rule on Work Zone Safety and Mobility. Specifically, the design phase of developing traffic control plans requires a traffic analysis to estimate queue lengths, travel times, and delays to determine lane closure times. State departments of transportation (DOTs) are required to comply with the requirements of the Final Rule by October 2007. To this end, this study was conducted to provide the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) with the state-of-the-practice tools for estimating the traffic mobility impacts at work zones. The conclusions in this study should help VDOT and other state DOTs choose the appropriate tool(s) for estimating the traffic impacts in and around work zones.