Work Zone Traffic Control

Driver Education

The plethora of media channels available to improve driver awareness of highway work zone safety issues is an ongoing opportunity as well as a challenge because messages can be diluted if they are not properly targeted and received in an appropriate context by the driving public.

The most appropriate environment for speaking directly to drivers is at the various physical contact points that provide reasonable assurance that individuals are aware of traffic safety and driving behavior information. These contact points include both the physical locations and online manifestations of such places as motor vehicle registry offices, police stations and auxiliary facilities, health care clinics and offices, driver education classes in public and private schools, driver training schools, automobile dealerships, automobile repair shops, and the commercial and institutional headquarters of trucking and bus operators.

Visual Signals

A range of signage motifs and symbols have been tested over the years to alert drivers to construction hazards they are approaching. These continue to be refined. Categories of such signals are diverse. Some are strictly concerned with notifying drivers about approaching lane changes or lane closures. Others focus on explicit speed limit reduction in work zones; many such signs include warning messages about increased fines for speed violations committed in work zones. Still other signs appeal to drivers' empathy with the workers on the road, for example, the “Give 'sem a Brake” motif.

Electronic Communication

Increasingly, state highway departments are deploying illuminated signs on roadways that can be updated from centralized and regionalized transportation department control bases. The signs are positioned as permanent installations on overpasses or purpose-built sign rigs, or, alternately, are positioned as mobile, self-powered units.

In either case, wireless links to transportation authorities permit the display of succinct messages to alert drivers of actual and anticipated work zone traffic situations miles ahead of the work site, giving drivers time to modify their driving behavior on the highway and also to make decisions on alternate routes that may be present.

An adjunct to these standing signs are the mobile modes of personal communications that are available. Highway authority radio dispatches tend to suffer from the limited range of their radio broadcasting, but these projects could improve by uploading their content in podcast form and linking to cell phone and wireless Internet service provider networks.

Some authorities have already deployed mobile apps suitable for a variety of popular mobile device platforms. Real-time video imagery of major interchanges, for example, can be displayed, along with graphic indications or text and tabular displays notifying motorists of work zones in their area.

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