On minimizing the impact on traffic of maintenance work zones in a highway network

Road maintenance plays a key role in increasing the reliability of highway networks. However, the presence of work zones hinders smooth traffic flow thus causing a temporary capacity reduction, with different impacts on traffic conditions according to the number of closed lanes or traffic deviation measures. This research is aimed at evaluating the optimal strategy for pavement work zone management to minimize the impact on traffic and road users, increasing, at the same time, the efficiency of maintenance planning. A three-step approach is proposed. The first step consists of evaluating the impact on traffic through microsimulation, performed considering the variation of transport demand over time. This allows the evaluation of the level of service parameters, such as queue length and travel time delay due to traffic limitations and work zone presence. In the second step, the results of pavement condition analysis are translated into degradation levels and the work zones to be planned are suggested. In the third step, the work zone scheduling is defined through an optimisation model able to allocate work zones to time intervals and to define the best work zone configuration to mitigate the impact on highway traffic flow. A solution algorithm is proposed to deal with the complexity of the planning model, solving big instances. The approach is applied to a real case study within the Horizon 2020 European project OMICRON. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach in minimizing the effects of maintenance execution on traffic while guaranteeing high infrastructure reliability.