The STARs Evaluation Tool: Optimising Network Performance, Road Worker Safety and Road User Safety During Roadworks and Maintenance

The aim of the Scoring Traffic at Roadworks (STARs) project is to optimise network availability, road worker safety and road user safety during roadworks. The objective was to develop a methodology to score roadworks schemes on these three interdependent risk areas which are usually considered in isolation, and to produce a practical tool for use particularly by contractors and contracting authorities in planning and assessing roadworks schemes and setting contractor targets. To achieve this objective, three risk equations for performance at roadworks have been developed and included in the STARs Evaluation Tool, together with a Multicriteria Solver Module to transform the scores into a “STARs” scale. This scale is used to produce an unbiased rating of individual management strategies. This paper describes the tool structure, briefly covers the theory governing the equations and illustrates use of the methodology with a case study. The STARs project is part of the ENR2011 DESIGN programme which is a cross-border funded Joint Research Programme initiated by ERA-NET Road.