Estimating motorist delay at two-lane highway work zones

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Maintenance or construction activity on a two-lane highway often requires a lane closure. As these conditions dictate that vehicles in both directions of travel utilize the highway's single remaining lane, significant motorist delay typically results. This paper presents a queueing-based approach for estimating the average delay imposed on vehicles in each operating cycle. To accommodate the stochastic nature of work zone operations, the research has exploited standard methods such as Monte-Carlo simulation and approximate analysis techniques to formulate models for predicting percentile values of average cyclic delay. Comparison of average delay values estimated using the formulated “approximate techniques” with those generated through Monte-Carlo and microscopic simulation suggests that the proposed method is a reasonable means for estimating work zone impacts.