Citation

Brown H, Sun C, Cope T. Transp. Res. Rec. 2015; 2485: 42-50.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.3141/2485-06

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Highway maintenance often involves the use of 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 moving work zone. One novel tool for mitigating this problem is a mobile work zone alarm system. This paper 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 levels for the tested configurations were within national noise standards. All 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. Some undesirable driver behaviors were occasionally observed, but it was unclear whether these driver behaviors were caused by the presence of the mobile work zone alarm device. Factors such as horizontal and vertical curves and movement of the vehicle with the truck-mounted attenuator caused false alarms and false negatives. The research demonstrated that mobile work zone alarms have the potential to be an effective tool in improving safety. Further refinements to the systems could improve effectiveness.