Safety Effects of Work Zone Advisory Systems Under the Intelligent Connected Vehicle Environment: A Microsimulation Approach

The maintenance is essential to keep good roadway conditions. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that crash risks increase in work zones. There have been many efforts to minimize crash risks in the work zones by installing conspicuous orange colored signs, imposing doubling fines, providing work zone information by fixed and portable dynamic message signs (DMSs), etc. Still, work zone related crashes are considered as a serious issue. In this study, the authors investigated the safety effects of work zone advisory systems. The traditional system includes a dynamic message signs while the advanced system includes an in-vehicle work zone warning application under the connected vehicle (CV) environment. A comparative analysis was conducted by designing microsimulation experiments. The results indicate that the CV-based warning system outperforms the DMS. From this study, the optimal distances of placing a dynamic message sign varies according to different traffic conditions. Nevertheless, negative influence of excessive distance DMS placed from the work zone would be more obvious when there is heavier traffic volume. Thus, it is recommended that the optimal distance DMS placed from the work zone should be shortened if there is a traffic congestion. It was also revealed that higher market penetration rate of CVs will lead to safer network under good traffic conditions.