IMPROVEMENT OF HIGHWAY WORK ZONE PERFORMANCE BY TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

This study investigates the effects of traffic management strategies on performance of a work zone along arterial roads. The strategies included Temporary Access Control (TAC), Limitation of Heavy Vehicles (LHV) and Lanes Management (LM). Study area was conducted on Queen Rania Al-Abdullah Arterial Street (QRAA) in Amman, the Capital of Jordan. Traffic volume was collected through field observation during morning rush hours. Then, a micro simulation model was developed based on empirical traffic data using VISSIM software. The simulation model has been validated using different parameters. The analysis showed that the average delay was highly affected by a lot of factors like percent of heavy vehicles, flow from access roads, parking, driver behavior and lanes monitoring. Moreover, the average delay was 113.5 second/vehicle and average speed was 17 km/hr. furthermore, speed has decreased from 22 km/hour before work zone to 10.1 km/hour at work zone (-54 %) . On the other hand, by applying the traffic management strategies, both of delay and speed were improved. For instance, average delay was decreased from 113.5 to 89 second/vehicle (-22%) and average speed showed improvement by 30 % (from 22 to 29) km/hr.