Application of Rolling Slowdown versus Roadblock on High Profile Roadways: A Case Study

When presenting construction to a freeway, it almost guarantees the flow of traffic will be hindered and the risk of a crash increases. Two prominent different types of maintenance of traffic have been used: rolling slow down and roadblock. In a rolling slow down, a pilot car will enter in front of a platoon of vehicles and moderately slow them down while allowing the cars ahead to continue at speed. This change of pace will cause a gap in traffic. These gaps are utilized by workers to adjust lane configurations or cross the roadway with machinery. Contrary to the idea of “keeping the traffic at a forward momentum”, the idea of a temporary road closure is being considered. If the roadway was closed for a short amount of time, the construction workers would not have any risk due to passing drivers. The purpose of this study was to use comparative analysis to determine the most safe and effective way to maintain traffic during high risk roadway change. For this study, four types of data were collected: crash data, traffic data, cost of implementation, and geometric conditions. From this data, operational analysis, cost analysis, and safety analysis were done. Results show that roadblock performs better than rolling slowdown.