Freeway Work Zone Rear-End Conflict Study Based on Two Traffic Conflict Indicators

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Abstract
This paper aims to use traffic conflict technique to analyze the safety situation of freeway work zone because its historical crash data cannot meet the requirement of statistical analysis. First, the traffic data of individual vehicles through the merging area and working area of closed one-way work zone and closed passing-lane work zone are collected and analyzed. Second, two methodologies are introduced and modified, the first one is based on time to collision (TTC), which can calculate the rear-end conflict number, while the second model is based on deceleration rate to avoid crash (DRAC), which can determine the possibility of rear-end collisions happening. Then, the rear-end conflict situation of typical work zones' merging areas and working areas are evaluated by the methodologies mentioned above. The results show these measures can quantitatively describe the rear-end conflict situation from different aspects.