QUANTIFYING USER DELAY ON HIGHWAY WORKZONE USING VISSIM

Abstract

Value of time is a broad term which encompasses a multitude of parameters like “value of goods, services, or some utility produced within a time interval.” Transportation experts are mainly concerned about the time saved and the value of each time unit saved. Transportation system in general, is continuously developing and many alterations over the years has increased the travel speed and subsequently, reduced the travel time. The savings achieved with the reduced travel time forms the major component of transportation user benefits. Highway agencies in Pakistan are committed to deliver a massive road infrastructure i.e. Motorways, and Highways, to boost economic activity and provided quality service to the passengers. However, the prevalent road network require exhaustive maintenance at regular interval. For maintenance and rehabilitation of highway infrastructure, workzones have been established by the respective highway agencies. Highway workzone reduces the capacity of that network and increases the travel time, which in turn obstructs the traffic flow. Traffic operation and proper management in work zone is of prime importance. The highway workzones required to improve infrastructure are a source of potential disruption that often impede mobility. Reduced speed limits past the work zones will cause some delays but most of all the road´s capacity significantly reduces in case of lane closures. This in turn, increases the probability of queues formation which may add to total time delay for the road users. These delays aggravate the cost incurred to the society as a whole. Additionally, queues increase fuel consumption, pollutants and risk for accidents. The proposed project aims at quantifying the user delay on highway work zone, by simulating different work zone strategies like lane closure, median crossover, using VISSIM software. In addition, analysis of different components of workzone i.e. median opening, length of work zone and bottle neck effect on the delay is carried out.