Work Zone Optimization for Two-Lane Highway Resurfacing Projects with an Alternate Route

Abstract

Pavements on two-lane two-way highways are usually resurfaced by closing one lane at a time. Vehicles then travel in the remaining lane along the work zone, alternating directions within each control cycle. In an earlier work, Chen and Schonfeld developed a work zone optimization model for two-lane highways with time-dependent inflows and no detours, based on simulated annealing. In this paper, several alternatives are evaluated, defined by the number of closed lanes and fractions of traffic diverted to alternate routes. The algorithm referred to as SAUASD (simulated annealing for uniform alternatives with a single detour) is developed to find the best single alternative within a resurfacing project. The algorithm referred to as SAMASD (simulated annealing for mixed alternatives with a single detour) is developed to search through possible mixed alternatives and their diverted fractions, to minimize total cost, further including agency cost (resurfacing cost and idling cost) and user cost (user delay cost and accident cost). Thus, traffic management plans are developed with uniform or mixed alternatives within a two-lane highway resurfacing project.