Highway work zone safety audits for safety improvements

Reviewing current practices of road safety audits worldwide, investigating the perceptions of experts on highway work zone safety in the USA and issues of adopting work zone safety audits in the country, and proposing a framework for developing guidelines for implementing work zone safety audits for safety improvements are the aims of this paper. The design/methodology/approach are as follows: the existing literature of road safety audits was reviewed and four-week questionnaire surveys of experts on highway work zone safety in the USA were administered. The findings were that road safety audits have been successfully adopted worldwide to maximize safety of the roadway environment for highway users. Leading causes of work zone safety problems and effective countermeasures, types of projects suitable for auditing and audit frequencies, audit team composition and funding sources, audit tasks and tools, and project staff safety training audits were clarified by the questionnaire surveys. A similar procedure for road safety audits could be adopted for work zone safety audits with emphasis on mitigating work zone safety impacts. The research limitations and implications are as follows: Valuable insights into the use of highway work zone safety audits for safety improvements may be added by additional survey participants from the highway user group. Practical implications include that the paper findings would assist in preparing strategies and methodologies for developing the national highway work zone safety audit guidelines in the USA. Transportation practitioners could be helped by the work zone safety audit guidelines developed here to effectively conduct work zone safety audits for safety improvements in the country.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1108/09699981011074592
• Record URL:
  • http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1881616
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/09699988
• Authors:
  • Li, Zongzhi
• Publication Date: 2010

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: pp 512-526
• Serial:
  • Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
  • Volume: 17
  • Issue Number: 5
  • Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
  • ISSN: 0969-9988
  • EISSN: 1365-232X
  • Serial URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0969-9988

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Guidelines; Literature reviews; Questionnaires; Safety audits; Work zone safety
• Uncontrolled Terms: Perceptions
• Geographic Terms: United States
• Subject Areas: Construction; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors; I50: Construction and Supervision of Construction; I60: Maintenance; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01444436
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 28 2012 8:59AM