United States Department of Transportation
i
Evaluating Detours for a Major Construction Project in the Era of Real-time Route Guidance
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2023-01-01
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[PDF-4.33 MB]
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Edition:Final Report
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Abstract:Major road construction projects can be significant sources of traffic congestion and motorist delays. Maintaining agencies typically attempt to mitigate these impacts by designating detour routes and providing project information to motorists. This information can be conveyed through a variety of media, from traditional static and variable roadway signage placed in the field to electronic media including web sites, radio and television advertisements, call centers, text messaging, and navigation apps. In this era of real-time traffic information and in-vehicle route guidance, it is not clear to what extent this detour information is used and which messaging components are most effective. This study used the Interstate 59/20 reconstruction project in Birmingham, AL to evaluate the detour planning process and the effectiveness of the resulting detour and information strategies. The objective was to develop recommendations and best practices that can be applied to future construction projects and allow transportation agencies to allocate project resources to greatest effect. The evaluation included a review of the transportation modeling process used to project traffic diversions and designate detour routes, a survey of motorists to determine the sources of information they used to choose detour routes during construction, and a study of traffic patterns before, during, and after the project to understand if and how detour patterns changed over the course of the one-year project. The study resulted in recommendations for conducting planning studies for large roadway projects and found that factors such as transit usage assumptions, employer work policies, and roadway capacity assumptions can have significant impacts on model accuracy. The survey found that motorists used a wide variety of information sources when selecting detour routes and that they often modified those routes based on real-time data. The travel time and traffic count analysis found that detour patterns did vary over time as the transportation system reached equilibrium. It also found that actual traffic patterns during the reconstruction project did not always match responses to the motorist survey, suggesting that motorists used designated detour routes initially but adjusted them during the course of the project.
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