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Introduction
As the nation’s highway infrastructure ages and more rehabilitation work is needed, work zones have become a daily fixture on our roads. Often, however, the user delays caused by work zones and the resulting costs to motorists, as well as the costs of mitigation strategies to lessen these delays, are not considered during the design and planning of projects. A new initiative of the Federal Highway Administration
(FHWA), known as the Strategic Work Zone Analysis Tools (SWAT) program, is out to change this.
Four Tools
Four tools are being developed as part of the initiative: an Expert System software
program, a traffic impact analysis spreadsheet, a cost/alternative analysis
spreadsheet, and a detailed simulation model. Other tools that are out there don’t encompass the impacts to areas surrounding work zones. With the
Expert System, a user would enter data on the characteristics of the work zone, such as what type of highway improvement or repair work is being done and the duration. The program would then provide a list of possible mitigation strategies for reducing work zone delays and costs, such as re-timing an alternative route’s traffic signals.
The traffic impact analysis spreadsheet, known as QuickZone, will provide a general and quick work zone traffic impact analysis capability. This tool will estimate the traffic impacts for various work zone mitigation strategies and estimating user delay and delay costs associated with these impacts. For example, if a highway agency was widening a lane of traffic,
QuickZone could estimate the impacts of doing work at night instead of during the day or diverting the traffic to one road versus another road during different phases of the construction. The user delay can be estimated for both an average day of work and for the whole life cycle of construction.
The simulation model, meanwhile, would be used in conjunction with QuickZone to more precisely estimate the impacts of specific work zone strategies and the effectiveness of mitigation techniques.
Version 1.0 of QuickZone is scheduled to be released in March of next year. In the meantime, a
prototype version is available for review and evaluation. A user need only have Microsoft Excel 97 or higher running on a Windows-based PC to use the
QuickZone application. The evaluators include a steering committee composed of States and Metropolitan Planning Organizations
(MPOs), among others.
Release Date
A definite date has not yet been set for the release of the Expert System software and the
simulation model. The SWAT program is expected to run through 2004.
Need Additional
Information?
Contact Debbie Curtis at deborah.curtis@fhwa.dot.gov
Operations
& Intelligent Transportation Systems Research > Travel
Management > Strategic WorkZone Analysis Tools > Quick Zone
| Publications
