Behavioural response towards placement and addition of signs in construction activities on highways

Traffic safety of work zone areas highways has been an emerging issue for road way agencies and governments due to the high number of accidents and near-accidents. To improve safety levels, Temporary Traffic Control (TTC) devices are currently in practice to mitigate safety related issues. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of different TTC measures on work zones of highways by driving simulator tests with self-assessed subjective workload. The effect of six different scenarios (conditions) on the mean speed inside an 11 km span of work zone on highways was investigated. The results indicated substantial effects on the mean speeds due to the presence of different TTC measures inside the transition area. The placement of work zone signs had a critical effect: the lesser the distance between signs, the better the speed compliance. The traditional speed sign resulted in a uniform speed distribution in the transition area, where as a significant effect of average speed reduction, a disruption in the uniform speed distribution was noted in scenarios where the speed enforcement was introduced. The conclusions of this study gives useful knowledge to government and highways officials for the design of construction activities on highways.

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