National Concrete Pavement Technology Center

Advances in data collection and detection technologies have made it easier for agencies to amass work zone data, but their ability to translate these data into meaningful performance metrics—a new federal requirement for states—has remained a challenge.

However, a new easy-to-use analytical tool developed by Institute for Transportation (InTrans) staff as part of a Smart Work Zone Deployment Initiative (SWZDI) research project simplifies the computation of work zone performance metrics by integrating data from commonly used transportation data standards and vendors. The tool is designed to work with data sources already familiar to many agencies, reducing the amount of manual data preparation and linkage typically required.

The Work Zone Performance Metrics Analytical Tool, or WZPERFOMAT, ingests work zone, crash, probe, and connected vehicle data from multiple sources to compute and visualize mobility and safety performance metrics. For example, work zone descriptions and geometries can be provided through Work Zone Data Exchange (WZDx) or Connected Work Zone (CWZ) feeds, crash data through formats such as Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) or Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS), and probe data through vendors such as HERE and INRIX, all of which are supported by the analytical tool.

“WZPERFOMAT produces downloadable reports that support the effective communication and documentation of work zone performance. These reports enable quick identification of issues and a deeper understanding of their impacts,” said InTrans Research Scientist Guillermo Basulto-Elias, who was the project’s principal investigator (PI).

The reports produced with the easy-to-use tool have become more important as the Federal Highway Administration requires state agencies to evaluate and report on work zone performance using both mobility and safety metrics, as well as develop policies that incorporate the performance measures.

Because of that requirement, WZPERFOMAT was developed with state agencies and primary roadways at the forefront. However, the easy-to-use tool will also help local agencies assess their street projects, particularly on safety metrics.

“The tool is intended to try to make it easy for everyone, so users don’t have to do a lot of legwork in terms of assigning work zone segments or crash locations. They can just upload the data they have available, and the tool will do all of that work in the background to provide the reports,” said InTrans Research Engineer Skylar Knickerbocker, who was the project’s co-PI.

WZPERFOMAT offers both project-level metrics to assess individual work zones and system-level metrics to assess the overall performance of multiple work zones at a regional or statewide level. The latter metrics provide the opportunity to identify areas of improvement and to steer an agency’s corrective actions.

Additionally, users can run WZPERFOMAT through InTrans servers, so no application needs to be downloaded to access the tool, and none of the users’ data are stored after they complete their session. However, the InTrans team also made the source code available for download, so if users prefer to run the tool on their own servers or have some programming knowledge to customize the tool, they can do so.

Access the final report and technical summary, as well as a link to the tool, at the SWZDI research project page. Additionally, the PIs held a webinar with the Iowa Local Technical Assistance Program on the research project that included a demonstration of the WZPERFOMAT available at its Iowa LTAP webinar page.