Risk Factors Affecting Crash Injury Severity by Work Zone Area

Work zones include advance warning area, transition area, and activity area. The geometric, traffic control aspects, traffic operations, and driver’s maneuverability differ within each work zone area. Therefore, the risk of getting involved in a crash and factors associated with these crashes vary by work zone area. The focus of this research is to examine and identify factors that influence crash injury severity in these work zone areas. Five years (2010 – 2014) of crash data for the state of North Carolina was obtained from the Highway Safety Information Systems (HSIS) and used in this research. Four partial proportional odds models were developed using SAS, as the data was violating the parallel lines assumption. The results obtained indicate that the risk of getting involved in a work zone crash, in the transition area, is higher on roads with rigid and flexible post barrier medians. Further, the risk of getting involved in a work zone crash, in the activity area, is higher in extreme weather conditions, on roads with rigid and flexible post barrier medians, on roads with speed limit between 26 mph – 45 mph, on interstates and on US routes. However, the risk of getting involved in severe injury crashes in the advance warning area is higher on roads with flexible post barrier medians but lower on roads with semi – rigid post barrier medians. The findings from this research will assist the practitioners to take precautionary measures and reduce the risk of getting involved in a crash by implementing safety countermeasures in work zone areas.