Modeling the effect of a freeway road construction project on link-level travel times

Drivers experience variations in travel time due to congestion and delays associated with road construction projects on existing transportation facilities. The effect on the travel time of a link decreases as its distance from the road construction project increases. In addition, the effect could extend to the connecting arterial street links within the vicinity of the road construction project. Therefore, the focus of this research is to model the effect of a road construction project on the freeway and connecting arterial street link-level travel times. Data pertaining to a resurfacing construction project, which lasted for six months, was gathered from the traffic incident management systems (TIMS). The travel time data was collected and processed, for each selected freeway and connecting arterial street link, for six months before the start of the resurfacing construction project and six months during the construction of the resurfacing project. Generalized linear models (GLM) were developed and validated for before and during the construction project periods with the average travel time on a link as the dependent variable. Data such as time-of-the-day, day-of-the-week, the distance of a link from the work zone, subject link characteristics, and upstream and downstream link characteristics were collected and used as the predictor variables. The results indicate that the subject link, upstream link and downstream link characteristics have a significant effect on the freeway and connecting arterial street link-level travel times due to the resurfacing construction project.