Night Versus Day Work—Balancing Safety, Operations, and Constructability for Short-Term Operations on Two-Lane Roads

Allowable work hours (AWH), also known as Allowable Closure Hours or Limitations on Operations, for a contract dictate which hours of the day construction and maintenance activities may occur and are known to affect operations, constructability, and safety. Individual districts set AWH for activities—including short-term maintenance, paving projects, construction contracts, and Land Use Permit work by utilities and other permittees—on two-lane roads in Virginia. AWH decisions balance numerous factors, including queue length, delay, crash risks, noise, nighttime constructability, worker safety, and local ordinances, among others. Because AWH are set locally, the process for setting AWH and the resulting AWH for similar roads vary within and between districts.

This project assessed the Virginia Department of Transportation’s (VDOT) current AWH practices in Virginia on two-lane roads for short-term projects, the level of variability among practices, and opportunities to improve statewide consistency. Researchers developed and distributed a statewide survey on AWH, conducted interviews with representatives from other state departments of transportation, and analyzed data from Virginia’s pavement management scheduling system. The results identified benefits to setting AWH at the district level rather than implementing statewide AWH. The work also identified specific areas that may benefit from statewide consistency without overly affecting local flexibility on decision making. The report recommends developing a framework for decision making and conducting outreach in regard to the existing decision-making tools.