KHIT 129, A Data-Driven Approach to Estimating Kentucky Road User Cost

Work zone is a major contributor to non-recurring delay and unreliable travel time on our roadway network. To quantify the user delay caused by work zones, the current Kentucky Road User Cost Tool relies on a traditional approach based on deterministic queuing theory. It has limited capability in capturing the time-varying nature of traffic flow and the complexity of driving behavior in congested condition. The methodology is unable to accurately account for the queue spillback to the upstream segments. Further, it is unable to account for the impact of detoured traffic on paralleled roads. KYTC is looking to improve its user cost and lane rental analysis through leveraging newly available data and methodology. The following features are considered to be of the highest priority in this study: *Differentiate the short-term and long-term work zone capacity calculations to improve queue estimation. *Ability to analyze lane closure on two-lane roads involving flaggers. *Sensitive to traffic control devices in the urban setting. *Ability to handle analysis involving ramp junction. *Update user costs by vehicle types. *Make the tool user friendly. *Provide guidelines and/or approaches to handling detours and road closure. If time and budget allow, additional considerations may be given to these aspects: (1) Additional user cost for existing users on detours; (2) Safety impact of work zones; (3) Handling change in work zone configuration during the analysis period, such as changing from two lane closure to one lane closure, or multiple closure windows; (4) Handling cases where some vehicles (e.g., trucks and buses) are subject to mandatory detour. The methodology can be spreadsheet-based initially. Implementing the methodology as a web application is desirable for the future.