Assessment of Work Zone Safety

Abstract

The increase in number of vehicles and deterioration of the existing facilities necessitates the need to improve the existing roadways and to build additional highways hence creating more work zones in cities around the globe. Two work zones one on a rural road and one on an urban road were studied to identify potential hazards in work zone and determine the most dangerous area of the work zone using risk concentration level. Confusing signs, use of dangerous devices for road closure, missing buffer, missing tapers, use of non-retro reflective devices, unprotected work area, dangerous flagging, missing safety alarms for heavy machineries, speed, aggressive driving and improper pedestrian access are the most dangerous hazards in work zone having a very high risk level. Transition area was found to be the most dangerous area of the work zone with a very high risk concentration level followed by working area with high risk concentration level, then advance warning area with medium risk concentration and finally termination area also with medium risk concentration. Proper installation and maintenance of temporary traffic control devices, use of safety attires by workers, fitting all moving machineries with safety alarms, use of retro reflective devices, protecting work activities, providing buffers for workers, and law enforcement will improve safety of the work zones.

Health and Safety in Temporary Work Zone Road Construction Project in Saudi Arabia: Risks and Solutions

“…Specifically, 55.2% of road users and 60.2% of civil engineers said that the transition area was the area with the highest risk probability of causing a crash in the WZ, followed by the advance warning area, 18.4% of road users, and 21.4% of civil engineers. This agrees with studies conducted by Jin and Saito (2009) and Khalil and Samir (2018) that stated the most crash-prone area location is the transition area [ 17 , 18 ]. In addition, approximately 92% of both groups reported that they obey WZ ahead signs by reducing their vehicle speed.…”

“…Additionally, most respondents thought that the presence of better and good condition TCD on WZ sites would definitely improve the safety of the WZs. That agrees with studies by Garber and Woo (1990), Jin and Saito (2009), Khalil and Samir (2018), Li and Bai (2008), Osman et al (2018), and Ullman et al (2008), which emphasized that the presence of a good condition of the TCD is effective and has a positive impact on work zone safety [ 9 , 17 , 18 , 21 , 24 , 31 ]. In terms of using developed technologies, it seems that deploying smart technologies in smartphone applications or within vehicles would affect and improve the health and safety of road work zones.…”

“…Safety in road work zones (RWZs) remains a high-priority issue for roadway agencies mainly due to the limited understanding of the contributing factors of the crashes and the lack of perception of road works’ importance globally and locally. Accordingly, much research has been conducted to investigate the influences of many aspects of road work zone characteristics on RWZ safety [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. The factors that contribute to crash frequency and/or severity include, but are not limited to, location, time and type of crash, roadway environment conditions and characteristics, and human factors.…”

“…In addition, using a cooperative intelligent transport system (C-ITS) for roadwork warnings would reduce bottlenecks at the roadworks’ entrance [ 32 ]. Regarding traffic control devices (TCDs), there is consensus that proper installation and maintenance of related TCDs and strictly maintaining the condition and reflectivity of those devices will improve safety in WZs [ 9 , 17 , 18 , 21 , 24 , 31 ]. It is clear that the majority of the studies reported earlier were not conducted locally, which implies the need for a local study in the area of research since the safety of WZs is highly influenced by differences in the area, driver knowledge, awareness, type of WZ, traffic conditions and density, WZ duration, and the reliability of the crash data.…”