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Ways of dealing with congestion

Congestion caused by roadworks represents not only a burden to road users but also present planners, operators and roadwork personnel with particular problems. For the purpose of exchanging experiences as well as discussing possibilities and problems, two seminars under the title "Roadworks congestion" were held in 2013: this first on 12th September 2013 in Hanover and the second on 25th September 2013 in Stuttgart. These seminars were organised by the German Road and Transportation Research Association (FGSV) in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Transport, the BASt and the construction industry. The lectures and discussions that took place enabled some key insights to be gained.

The picture shows a construction site on a highway

There still exists a significant potential to handle road works in a more efficient and less disruptive way for the benefits of traffic than often ensues today. Even if not all approaches are possible to the same extent, in the future more consideration should be given as to whether technical engineering innovations and modern roadworks and traffic management approaches do not represent an alternative in each case to the conventional construction work methods and traffic routing in use today. The economic savings, in particular, associated with lower levels of traffic flow disruption and prevention of accidents as a result of congestion specific to roadworks, can justify the extra costs incurred for technically complex and expensive solutions many times over.

Minimum widths

An initial approach is to determine acceptable minimum widths of the individual traffic lanes in the areas of roadworks. This has not only been considered in the guidelines for the construction of motorways – to counteract restrictions due to roadworks, but was also well received when the guidelines for road safety at roadworks were revised.

Soft skills

In addition to purely technical approaches, significant importance was also given to "soft skills". Two points, in particular, are highlighted in this regard: The first is that the authority responsible for the roadworks perceives his function as a service provider for road users, while the second is the understanding of road users for the constructional measures.

Timing

The sensitive dealing of the issue as to when measures should be undertaken or roadworks set up must be taken into account by those responsible for the roadworks. In this manner, it is possible to achieve significant improvements by simple means – for example, by making use of Construction Operation Model 2 "Extended day shift taking account of daylight". Targeted public relation activities must be undertaken to inform road users of the necessity of the roadworks and the associated restrictions.

The picture shows a construction site on a highway

24-hour roadworks

Around-the-clock construction work can only come into question in particularly critical cases of traffic problems, since this is associated with other issues of occupational safety, disturbances for residents, delivery problems at weekends and the non-availability of capacities for other measures – amongst other things. Furthermore, it is also necessary to find ways of dealing with the restrictions associated with the Public Services Law and the tariff agreements for three-shift work, if the administration is to face the contractors as an equal partner.

Road closures

It is to be expected that complete road closures will be far more common in the future. Although this may well result in greater traffic disruption, it does, however, provide the opportunity for the constructional measures to be completed more rapidly – and also better complies with occupational safety issues.