Evaluation of mobile work zone alarm systems.

Details

• Creators:
  Brown, Henry ; Sun, Carlos ; Cope, Tim
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Missouri--Columbia. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Work zone safety
  • Traffic crashes
  • Traffic speed
  • Truck mounted attenuators
  • Alarm systems
  • Field tests
  • Merging traffic
  • Distracted driving
  • Evaluation
• Publication/ Report Number:
  cmr 15-011
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Missouri
• Corporate Publisher:
  Missouri. Dept. of Transportation. Research, Development and Technology Division
• Abstract:
  Maintenance of highways often involves mobile work zones for various types of low speed moving operations such as ; striping and sweeping. The speed differential between the moving operation and traffic, and the increasing problem of ; distracted driving can lead to potential collisions between approaching vehicles and the truck-mounted attenuator (TMA) ; protecting the mobile work zone. One potential solution to this problem involves the use of a mobile work zone alarm ; system. This report describes the field evaluation of two types of mobile work zone alarm devices: an Alarm Device and a ; Directional Audio System (DAS). Three modes of operation were tested: continuous, manual, and actuated. The ; components of the evaluation included sound level testing, analysis of merging distances and speeds, and observations of ; driving behavior. The sound level results indicated that the sound levels from both systems fall within national noise ; standards. All of the tested configurations increased the merging distance of vehicles except for the Alarm Actuated setup. ; The DAS Continuous setup also reduced vehicle merging speeds and the standard deviation of merging distance. In some ; instances, undesirable driving behaviors were observed for some of these configurations, but it is unclear whether these ; driving behaviors were due to the presence of the mobile work zone alarm device. Analysis of alarm activations indicated ; that factors such as horizontal curves and movement of the TMA vehicle created false alarms and false negatives. The ; research demonstrated that mobile work zone alarms have the potential to be an effective tool in improving safety by ; providing audible warnings. Further refinements to the systems, such as modifications to the alarm sound and warning ; message, could improve system effectiveness.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  TR201412
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/29134/dot_29134_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.29 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:4469f3cd2a58fa5d5148d4f12a0a16fb2ad21e5caa9b88b7d07c0fa44f699c62b66cccb745efe2599ab23d1862d9566354f0135f3326edd5769ea8389720f8f3