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Read MoreThe activities and provisions made to establish temporary conditions to keep the travel ways and paths safe during road construction and maintenance or utility work is known as Maintenance of Traffic (MOT). In these temporary conditions, because traffic flow and construction occur simultaneously, it is crucial that proper MOT occurs to ensure the safety of the traveling public and construction workers.
Maintenance of traffic design should identify the applicable MOT features needed to facilitate safe travel through a work zone. For MOT implementation, it is important to maintain pavement markings, barriers, signage, traffic signals, lighting, pedestrian walkways, bicycle lanes, and drainage throughout construction.
Driver Safety
It is essential to consider and account for all forms of public travel in a work zone. As always, safety is a top priority, and this includes vehicular, pedestrian, and bicycle traffic safety. The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) states, “construction, maintenance, utility, and incident zones can all benefit from temporary traffic control to compensate for the unexpected or unusual situations faced by road users.”
Driver Expectation
Another important factor in MOT safety is driver expectation. It should be the goal of the designer and contractor alike to route users through MOT zones using roadway geometrics and features as close as possible to normal highway conditions. This helps maintain driver expectations, allowing anticipation of the temporary condition to occur. Visibility and a driver’s available sight distance are both factors that influence expectation. It is crucial to consider the appearance of MOT during daytime and nighttime traffic conditions and account for the additional provisions required to keep the roadway user informed.
Further Planning Considerations
As the complexity and magnitude of roadway construction or maintenance vary, so does the design and implementation of the temporary traffic control. MOT can be as simple as a shoulder closure for short term work outside of the travel lanes, which can be implemented using a pre-engineered standard design from the MUTCD. MOT can also be complex, requiring years of construction staging involving multiple lane shifts and changes to travel lane configurations. Roadway improvement projects for a multi-lane reconstruction typically utilize an engineered MOT plan that can encompass large volumes of design pages. With this level of complexity, the MOT plan should be thorough, addressing all foreseeable issues to minimize delays and incidents. At the same time, the MOT plan should be designed to meet all applicable standards and provide the contractor with clear and concise direction on the intent of the designer resulting in a MOT zone that maximizes safety.
Maintenance of traffic is a necessary and integral part of roadway construction. As stated in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, “the needs and control of all road users (motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians including those with disabilities) through a temporary traffic control zone shall be an essential part of highway construction, utility work, and maintenance operations.” Following this guidance should help create an experience that ends in safe travel for the public and an incident free day for the construction worker.
We would like to thank Steven Brabham for providing insight and expertise that greatly assisted this research.
Steven Brabham is a Professional Engineer in J.S. Held’s Accident Reconstruction Practice. Beginning his engineering experience, he worked five years for a consulting firm on Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) projects. During his time spent performing traditional civil engineering, he gained valuable expertise in roadway design, intersection design, maintenance of traffic design, and FDOT standards and specifications. Now as a forensic engineer he applies that expertise to accident reconstruction. Mr. Brabham has experience in scene investigation, passenger and commercial vehicle event data retrieval, and reconstruction analysis. He provides accident reconstruction analysis and consulting services to legal, insurance, governmental, and corporate systems throughout the United States.
Steven can be reached at [email protected] or +1 850 661 7778.
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