Determining the Effectiveness of Temporary Traffic Control Measures in Highway Work Zones

Highway work zones constitute a major safety concern for government agencies, legislatures, the highway industry, and the traveling public. Each year, hundreds of people lose their lives and many more are injured due to vehicle crashes in work zones on the national highway system. Over the years, temporary traffic control (TCC) measures have been developed to improve the safety in work zones. To improve the safety countermeasures and to identify the traffic control deficiencies in work zones, evaluating the effectiveness of existing TTC measures based on the real crash experience is necessary. In the present study, researchers evaluated the effectiveness of several commonly used TTC methods using logistic regression technique and various chi-square statistics. The assessed TTC methods included flagger/officer, stop sign/signal, flasher, no passing zone control, and pavement center/edge lines. A total of 655 severe crashes in Kansas highway work zones between January 2003 and December 2004 were used for the evaluation, which included 29 fatal crashes and 626 injury crashes. The results indicated that flagger, flasher, and pavement center/edge lines were effective in reducing the probability that work zone crashes would involve fatalities. In addition, the effectiveness of these devices in preventing some common human errors, such as “disregarded traffic control,” “inattentive driving,” “followed too closely,” and “exceeded speed limit or too fast for condition,” from causing severe crashes was also determined.