Traffic impacts at construction areas: A case study of Markprok-Muang Phuket section, Highway 402

Abstract

The construction, reconstruction, and maintenance of roads require closures of some traffic lanes for project zones, material storage, and machine preparation. This requirement often causes traffic flow surrounding the construction projects to be slowing down. The present study aims at investigating such a traffic impact from using the Department of Highways (DOH) standards in traffic management at work zone. A traffic micro-simulation modeling was developed for a case study of highway No. 402 section Markprok to Muang Phuket from STA. 41+140 to 42+220 km. The model considers the travel time and delay time of vehicles moving from the early warning area to the termination area. The results showed that the base case construction areas of 20 meters taper length resulted in an average vehicle travel time of 302.62 seconds and delay time of 92.30 seconds per vehicle. The quality of service is LOS F. Afterward, the taper lengths were adjusted to 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, and 150-meters. The 90-meter taper length resulted in an average travel time of 286.58 seconds and a delay time of 75.29 seconds per vehicle. This taper length is recommended as the most suitable for traffic management. It showed that the average travel time and the delay time could be reduced by 5 percent and 18 percent, respectively, compared to those of the base case. The quality of service is E. The 90-meter taper length also disrupted the traffic area less than the 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, and 150-meter taper length without any significant difference in traffic flow efficiency. The results obtained from this study can be adopted as a guideline for traffic management on similar construction sites in other areas.