Integrating Crash, Real-time Traffic, and Lane Closure Data for Statewide Highway Work Zone Safety Analysis

Research indicates that highway work zones interrupt regular traffic flow and increase crash risks. Work zone safety analysis can help identify the risk factors and improve work zone safety. Ideally, a variety of data sources including crash reports, work zone attributes, and traffic detection are needed to support work zone safety analysis. However, the data is usually very limited in terms of quantity, quality and completeness, especially for traffic data. Most existing studies have to rely on estimated average daily traffic (ADT) because actual traffic data is unavailable. This paper integrates actual work zone traffic data from traffic detectors, police crash reports and statewide lane closure records and calculates the crash rates and crash costs by the actual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) for several work zone attribute categories. The results provide a comprehensive and systematic review of statewide work zone safety. The key of this integration is the successful alignment of previously disparate data sources to a common linear referencing system, and the general ideas can also be applied to other similar traffic related data systems.