Assessment of measures to reduce congestion at work sites of shorter duration on federal highways

Abstract

Evaluation of measures to reduce congestion at workplaces of shorter duration on federal freeways Within the scope of the present work, a system is developed that allows the economic effects of congestion-reducing measures in direct connection with a workplace of shorter duration (AkD) to be quantified with sufficient precision and to be assessed in a comprehensible manner with regard to their efficiency.In the first part of the paper, it is first shown that causal relationships exist between the establishment and implementation of AkD and their effects on traffic flow, i.e. that changes in input variables (e.g. through measures) can be expected to lead to changes in the traffic and operational effects of AkD. These impacts can be scaled in terms of their costs in such a way that it is possible to look at the ratios between the monetized values of these impacts. This possibility is the prerequisite for developing an economic efficiency analysis based on an input/output-based efficiency criterion to assess the impact of congestion reduction measures by comparing a "without (measure) case" and the respective "with (measure) case". Furthermore, it will be shown which essential requirements have to be considered when developing measures for congestion reduction in AkD and how possible solutions can look like. A number of concrete examples are used to illustrate this approach.Since the implementation of a sufficient number of in-situ experiments from a statistical point of view to record the traffic effects of measures to be considered was not possible either for time or financial reasons due to the large number of factors influencing these and also due to the interventions in the traffic flow on freeways, a microscopic traffic flow model was selected in the next step to describe the traffic flow at AkD, adapted with the help of results from the in-situ experiments carried out in the run-up to the work and used to carry out further investigations (simulation experiments).Based on the operational and traffic results recorded in in-situ and simulation experiments, the modes of action and essential boundary conditions of congestion reduction measures are discussed and the results are presented in the form of indications for concrete measures. As essential boundary conditions, the labor and personnel law, the social and medical as well as the safety aspects (traffic safety and occupational health and safety) are introduced into the consideration.

In order to formalize the assessment of congestion reduction measures, a five-stage system is developed, based on the principles and interrelationships presented in the previous sections. This system allows the efficiency of a congestion reduction measure to be quantitatively assessed at the macroeconomic level by comparing the efficiency of a congestion reduction measure in the "without" case with the efficiency of a congestion reduction measure in the "with" case. The input variables for this efficiency analysis are in each case the variables "output", defined as "unit of activity performed in a specific time interval", and "input" as "sum of the costs of the road operation service and the congestion-related costs".The systematics developed allows decisions to be made on

• the absolute advantageousness of a measure (JalNo of the target fulfillment) as well as
• the relative advantageousness of a measure compared to one or more other measures. This enables both a selection of alternatives and an objectified ranking of measures according to their degree of goal fulfillment.

This Abstract was translated from German with deepL and could be faulty.