Highway work zone warning system design based on drivers' requirements

Abstract

With the full coverage of the highway network in each country, the workload of highway construction and maintenance is getting bigger and bigger. The establishment of highway work zones has brought a more complex road environment for motorists. A large number of injuries and fatalities occur in work zones, of which about 60% are estimated to be road drivers. Many accident analysis studies have also shown that these accidents are mainly caused by driver's own human factors and inadequate road safety facilities. In order to reduce the occurrence of these accidents, some advanced technologies are being applied to traffic warning facilities. However, the real needs of drivers, who are the actual recipients of the warnings, are not fully considered in the warning design. Therefore, in this study, a Quality Function Deployment (QFD) approach is used to systematically analyze the user requirements and to design the actual design requirements of the traffic warning system in the work zone in conjunction with the emerging warning technologies. The new warning system design is expected to reduce work zone accidents caused by human factors because its requirements are based on real drivers' requirements. To achieve a human-centred safety design. In this study, two steps are taken. First, user requirements were obtained by interviewing driving experts. Second, the design requirements of the intelligent warning system were analysed and prioritized using a QFD method, resulting in the output of key design requirements.