Modeling Drivers’ Travel Behavior Changes Caused by Highway Work Zones

It is critical to understand the impacts that work zones have on travel behavior and tripmaking, as more are implemented across the national highway system each year. For example, despite much recognition that work zones generate road user costs and potentially impact local businesses, there is little guidance on how engineers should quantify these impacts. Therefore, this paper describes a study to quantify the factors affecting individuals’ willingness to continue to take a) grocery, b) leisure, and c) personal shopping trips when faced with work zones with varying durations that cause varying amounts of delay. Specifically, a nationally representative survey of drivers was conducted that presented respondents with personally tailored and statistically weighted scenarios and asked them how their travel behavior would change. An ordered probit model of their changes in behavior was estimated based on demographics, roadway/community characteristics, and work zone characteristics. Results highlighted a significant “tipping point” delay time between of 5 and 20 minutes resulting in a change in respondent behavior, across all three trip types. Leisure and personal shopping trips, compared to grocery trips, had a higher percentage of respondents who chose to cancel their trip entirely, across all delay types. These results can be used in a variety of ways: from quantifying work zone costs and identifying construction schedules that minimize these costs, to community outreach applications.