Planning urban highway reconstruction with traffic demand affected by construction schedule

This paper introduces an integrated approach to the development of construction and traffic management plans for the reconstruction of high-volume urban freeways. The Devote project, which rebuilds a 4.2 km stretch of the deteriorated concrete pavement (truck lanes) on Interstate-15 (I-15) in San Bernardino County in southern California, is used as a case study. Alternative closure timing, closure duration, and number of closed lanes were compared to identify the best rehabilitation strategy for the Devore reconstruction project. The perspectives of construction schedule, traffic inconvenience (road user cost and maximum delay), and agency costs were considered. The analysis concluded that full closure of one roadbed with counter-flow traffic during repeated three or four continuous weekdays, utilizing round-the-clock reconstruction operations, was the best strategy for both the public and the sponsoring agency. A delay in the start of construction from Spring to Fall 2004 is expected to cause a 5% seasonal traffic increase, which will result in a $4.5 million increase in road user cost and a 20% increase in maximum queue delay per closure.