Safety Performance Evaluation of Minnesota’s Low-Height, Temporary Rigid Panel Sign Stand

A wide variety of traffic controlling devices are used in work zones, some of which are not normally found on the roadside or in the traveled way outside of the work zones. These devices are used to enhance the safety of the work zones by controlling the traffic through these areas. Due to the placement of the traffic control devices, the devices themselves may be potentially hazardous to both workers and errant vehicles. The impact performance of many work-zone traffic control devices is mainly unknown and to date limited crash testing has been conducted, under the criteria of National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report No. 350, Recommended Procedures for the Safety Performance Evaluation of Highway Features. The objective of the study was to evaluate the safety performance of a modified work-zone traffic control devices through dynamic bogie testing according to the Test Level 3 (TL-3) criteria set forth in the NCHRP Report No. 350. Both of the impacts on the low-height, temporary rigid panel sign supports resulted in acceptable safety performances. Following the analysis of these crash tests as well as the test results from other testing programs, it has been found that slight variations in design features of the work-zone traffic control devices can lead to very different performance results. Therefore, extreme care should be taken in applying crash test results from one work-zone traffic control device to similar work-zone traffic control devices with slight variations. The results of the crash tests were documented and the temporary work-zone devices were accepted by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) as a crashworthy device.