Lane closures due to highway work zones present many challenges to the goal of ensuring smooth traffic operations and a safe environment for drivers and workers. Late merge behavior at the work zone closure is a dangerous behavior that impacts the traffic conflicts upstream of work zone closures. The objective of this research is to analyze the safety impacts of using a signalized lane control strategy at the work zone merge points. To achieve the objective of this research, a field study was conducted at a highway work zone to collect traffic and driver behavior data, and a two-stage, simulation-based approach was used to analyze the safety impacts of implementing a signalized lane merge control strategy at the studied work zone. At the first stage, micro- simulation models were developed and calibrated based on field data to generate vehicle trajectories. At the second stage, FHWA’s Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM) was employed to identify potential conflicts under different traffic conditions. The research concludes that a proposed signal control device could significantly reduce lane-change conflicts at work zone merge points. In addition, recommendations on the signal cycle length and timing splits are provided.
↧