Effectiveness of work zone intelligent transportation systems (ITS)

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have been developed to help relieve traffic congestion and improve safety on highways. Work zones are key areas to deploy ITS because of the high risk of congestion and accidents due to lane closures. This thesis developed a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of ITS in work zones. Past studies have not consistently used all necessary performance measures in their evaluations such as diversion, delay, queue lengths, accident rates, and various speed measurements. This thesis includes a comprehensive literature review on ITS in work zones, a general framework for evaluating work zone ITS deployments, application of the developed framework to I-70 and I-44 work zones, and a benefit-cost analysis to estimate the monetized ITS benefits. I-70 had a benefit-cost ratio of 5.1 to 1 if all of the cost of permanent equipment is included and 19.8 to 1 if only the work zone duration cost of permanent equipment is included. I-44 had a benefit-cost ratio of 17 to 1 if all of the cost of permanent equipment is included and 48.6 to 1 if only the work zone duration cost of permanent equipment is included. The benefits for each of these case studies could be better estimated if there was data for a period of time when DMS was not used, since accident rate reduction could be added to the I-70 benefits and delay reduction could be added to the I-44 benefits.