Issue Feature

Road Work Safety Requires Good Planning

Special feature

From the January 2004 issue of Better Roads Magazine

Roger Wentz

Elevating safety in quality-managed roadway projects is a key goal for departments of transportation.

Ask Greg Ranft for the overarching concern when his team reconstructed the most heavily traveled radial freeway in Texas — Houston’s US 59-Southwest Freeway — while replacing its four bridges.

The Texas Department of Transportation area engineer doesn’t hesitate. "Safety. It was the number one issue from when we started designing. We said, ‘Let’s do this the safest way possible during construction and make it the safest result afterwards.’ High intensity reflective sheeting for overhead signs, REACT 350 crash cushions for the front end of concrete barrier strings, work-zone pavement markings at every phase, dynamic message signs, low profile safety barriers for pedestrian walkways: these and the range of safety and traffic control features dominated the earliest plans and entire project."

Work in progress

The American Traffic Safety Services Association partners with the National Partnership for Highway Quality because it has a significant stake in the results delivered by quality-driven highway projects. To be sure, it’s gratifying to see efforts underway across the nation to raise the bar on roadway construction and traffic safety. But there’s still a great deal of road work ahead.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2002 statistics on highway fatalities show them at the highest level since 1990: 42,815 deaths last year, up 1.5% from 2001. According to the U.S. DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the death toll in highway work zones for 2002 reached 1,181 — 1,029 of whom were drivers and their passengers.

As work-zone fatalities continue to climb each year, so, of course, do traffic volumes. Recent FHWA estimates show vehicle miles traveled in 2002 increased to 2.83 trillion, up from 2.78 trillion in 2001. It’s not rocket science: the need for integration of roadway safety solutions at every stage of roadway project management has never been clearer.

There are two bright spots in this picture. Although overall fatalities have increased, the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled remained at 1.51; and the number of injured dropped from 3.03 million in 2001 to 2.92 million in 2002.

How can we further brighten the safety landscape? How do we elevate safety at every stage of a roadway project? We encourage state roadway quality partnerships and advocate for a greater emphasis on quality management in all highway construction projects. Along the way, we will remain vigilant, every hour of every day, about the safety of our own workers and the roadway users they serve.

Elevating quality

Kathi Holst, ATSSA’s president, talks with conviction and from experience about practices that elevate quality in work zones, and emphasizes four themes: continual retraining and recertification; context-sensitive solutions for individual work zones; public awareness campaigns; and the use of technology for injury prevention. "We’re talking about safety programs that go well beyond subcontractor-prime agreements for hard hats, steel-toed shoes and reflective gear."

Training and certification programs for those who design, install, and adjust traffic control in work zones and safety provisions for all roadway workers are crucial; and they shouldn’t stop when one gets trained. The fact is, when people spend their days in a work zone with traffic whizzing by at 75 miles per hour, they become desensitized. Training and certification are good starts, but retraining and recertification on a continual basis elevate training to a new status: that of a hallmark of quality.

Context-sensitive solutions are a similar quality indicator. Every work zone is different; training and planning differ accordingly and should be based on field analysis. A good plan asks not only "are safety devices in the traffic control plan?" but also "is the plan sufficient for the conditions of the project?" There’s more involved than safety vests or evacuation plans. And you won’t necessarily find work-zone safety for every condition in safety manuals.

It’s up to traffic control managers to evaluate and address the differences in work zones from one location to another, and devise training programs accordingly. Adjustments for nighttime work are an example. The public often prefers for us to work at night, but drug and alcohol abuse, tired drivers, and impaired vision hit us hard on the safety side.

A quality-managed project also includes road rage mitigation, often in the form of public awareness. Holst says, "Large, multi-season rehabilitation projects, like the reconstruction of expressways, require constant recharging in terms of public information, in order to keep customers positive. And the campaigns must start early. When the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority decided to widen to four lanes one of its expressways around the city of Chicago, public awareness campaigns began months before the project started. The toll authority let people envision what the road would look like when it was done in an effort to get them on board and prepared for the inconvenience."

A recurring challenge is asset allocation: "Dollars have to be swapped from concrete and asphalt to public awareness, always a dilemma in this budget climate. Do we spend the dollars on safety and public awareness, which are intangibles? Do we spend what’s needed to warn drivers, businesses, and residents of what’s coming, publicize detours, hold town meetings, and gain community feedback? It’s not as if we can sneak expressway reconstruction by and no one will notice!

"The theory and practice of get-in; get-out; stay-out works on a one-year project," Holst says. "But multi-year efforts can be a different animal. Getting the media involved and reminding motorists of future benefits are vital quality management tools."

Public information programs take many forms, and can be quite creative. Just before completing construction of its award-winning M-11 at M-37 intersection project in Kent County, the Michigan DOT co-sponsored a barrel bash.

In a unique take on customer-focused decision-making — and road rage mitigation — commuters were invited to a party for a chance to swing a baseball bat at those orange construction barrels they’d been staring at through the windshield for six months.

Here’s a different aspect of context-sensitive solutions: a quality-managed highway project recognizes categories of drivers and demographics other than the normal driver. Dr. Gene Hawkins, who heads the Operations and Design Division at the Texas Transportation Institute, notes that "The selection of traffic control devices on a given project needs to consider different user populations, each of which may have a different set of demands.

"On a signalized roadway, for instance, bicyclists can have a tough time activating detectors. For passenger cars, a typical loop detector may work fine. There won’t necessarily be one traffic control product that meets the needs of all groups, and a series of compromises can be part of the right overall strategy. It might not be possible to put the best possible product out there; it may be the second choice for one constituency, rather than the first choice. The process starts with knowing the customer."

Older drivers, as an example, may need to recognize messages sooner, and benefit from large signs. They benefit from wider edge lines too. Florida is a leader in these areas, which makes sense, given the state’s large older population. It’s worth highlighting that safety features are equal opportunity providers: the state’s larger signs and wider edge lines better serve the entire driving population, not just older drivers.

The spectrum of other driver categories is also important: inexperienced drivers who may have limited exposure to work zones, cautious drivers, truckers, and motorcyclists. In quality-managed safety and traffic control plans, motorists other than the 35-year-old male in a four-door sedan are considered.

Another flag of quality is the development and use of technologies that prevent injury and loss of life when crashes do occur. "The idea is that even if you damage your vehicle, you have a better chance of walking away," says Holst. "In the past we’ve focused most of our energies on preventing crashes. Wider edge lines, bigger, brighter signs, and greater public awareness are examples. More and more, we’re seeing solutions for injury prevention too, like gating devices, water-filled barrier walls, and impact attenuation devices. Other safety boosts for the roadway workers are intrusion alarms that alert when a motorist is coming; these can be audio or visual, like flashing strobe lights."

Reflecting on work-zone safety and quality, Hawkins concludes, "Work zones must get smarter, as should communications with road users about the effects of the work zone on their systems. The development of overarching traffic management plans for control inside, outside, around, and in the corridor deserves more attention and earlier review in project plans. Fortunately, these areas, along with performance measures and technology innovations, are benefiting from an increasing number of cooperative research programs in safety and operations."

The affordability factor

A continual juggling act is adding to the state of the practice while balancing affordability and performance. On the one hand, agencies don’t always have up-front funding for advances like impact attenuators, vehicle redirect devices, micro-prismatic sheeting for signs, or the latest Intelligent Transportation Systems. On the other hand, the economic impact of highway deaths and injuries on the nation is staggering. When over 42,000 people a year lose their lives on the road and about 3,000,000 are injured in motor vehicle crashes, the cost to taxpayers is nearly $21 billion. Societal costs exceed $230 billion.

These facts underscore ATSSA’s support of robust federal funding for a highway program that includes a core roadway safety program targeting roadway hazards and improving infrastructure. According to the Federal Highway Administration, roadway conditions contribute to one-third of all motor vehicle fatalities. High-risk areas that would benefit from a core roadway safety program are run-off-the-road crashes, intersections, pedestrian and bicycle traffic, older drivers, speed management, work zones, safety management systems, emergency management, and roadway safety research.

Roger Wentz is the executive director of the American Traffic Safety Services Association.

ATSSA’s Traffic Expo

This year, ATSSA’s 34th Annual Convention and Traffic Expo will take place at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas from January 30 through February 3. The event will bring together every segment of the roadway safety industry — from pavement marking to computer software to protective clothing to ITS and everything in between.

Attendees from more than 50 countries will be on hand to share their experience and expertise. You can meet with other roadway safety professionals who are facing the same challenges you are to share ideas, opinions, and success stories.

The latest and greatest products will be on display in the exhibit hall. The New Product Show case will let you preview the new, innovative products and the solutions that could change the way you do business.

Educational opportunities abound. Industry leaders will present expanded, multi-track workshop programs on subjects that include highway funding, the 2003 MUTCD, ITS in the work zone, roundabouts, older drivers, and much more. Certification programs are available just before or immediately following the convention.

 

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