Abstract
Work zones along interstates often have increased congestion and crash rates when locations are close to or over capacity. Having agile monitoring methods to identifying emerging issues and challenges can provide data to transportation agency decision makers to refine maintenance of traffic plans and inform future designs.
This study developed techniques to fuse a multitude of data sources including connected vehicle speeds, connected vehicle hard-braking events, crash reports, digital alerts, commercial vehicle dash camera images, into a weekly interstate work zone report that gives stakeholders a holistic overview of their work zone operations and allowed for easy identification of opportunities for improvement. Approximately 249 weekly work zone reports were generated and distributed to approximately 100 stakeholders across the state on an approximately weekly basis. These reports provide an at-a-glance view of statewide, district, and route mobility, crash data, hard-braking, and most recently dash camera images to contextualize the heatmaps.
Outside of operational value within the state, these types of weekly reports have been developed for other states through a Transportation Pooled Fund Study on Work Zone Analytics with participation from the Federal Highway Administration and 8 other states, and helping shape USDOT’s 23 CFR Part 630 Subpart J that was released on November 1, 2024.
The methodologies developed in this study serve as a framework for transportation agencies, practitioners, and other stakeholders looking to use emerging connected vehicle data, smart work zone data, among others, to monitor the performance of their work zones on a regular basis. The practice of estimating hard-braking events from raw connected vehicle data instead of relying on instantaneous hard-braking events with opaque vendor-defined braking thresholds now allows for greater freedom to tweak acceleration thresholds based on the roadway class being analyzed, and opens opportunities for dialogue among practitioners on determining ideal custom thresholds for freeways, arterials, or other facilities.
Keywords
work zones, hard-braking, connected vehicles, interstate mobility, safety, congestion
Report Number
FHWA/IN/JTRP-2025/31
SPR Number
4850
Sponsoring Organization
Indiana Department of Transportation
Performing Organization
Joint Transportation Research Program
Publisher Place
West Lafayette, Indiana
Date of Version
2025
DOI
10.5703/1288284318581
Recommended Citation
Overall, M. W., Mukai, J., Desai, J., Sakhare, R. S., Kachler, M., McGregor, J., & Bullock, D. M. (2025). Continued deployment of Indiana work zone analytics (Joint Transportation Research Program Publication No. FHWA/IN/JTRP-2025/31). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University. https://doi.org/10.5703/1288284318581
SPR-4850 Technical Summary