Impact Analysis of Work Zone Configuration, Traffic Flow and Heavy Vehicle Percentage on Traffic Delay at Work Zones

Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate the effects of work zone configuration, traffic flow and heavy vehicle percentage on traffic delay at work zones by using a heterogeneous cellular automata (HCA) model. The activity area length and transition area length are two work zone configuration factors taken into account. The average traffic delay per work zone and the average traffic delay per 100m are the two indices used to express traffic delay at work zones. The graphical comparison results show that the transition area length has much bigger effects than the activity area length on traffic delay, especially in the light traffic condition. The function of average traffic delay per work zone is finally formulated that can be used to estimate the marginal effects of the activity area length, transition area length, traffic flow and heavy vehicle percentage.