The European Union Road Federation created in 2011 a dedicated Working Group to carry out a focused research on national guidelines, legislations and cases regarding equipment deployed in road work zones, in order to detect best practices, identify improvements and produce performance guidelines adapted to the state of the art. The Working Group’s first achievement has been the collection of detailed information regarding national legislation, signs, markings and other infrastructure elements used in work zones in various member states, e.g. Spain, Italy, France, Austria, Germany and Belgium. Focused on the TEN-T road network and surveying the approach, activity and termination areas in mobile, short and long term work zones, current practices in member states and the equipment used throughout various European countries were collected and examined. The most commonly used equipment was selected and appropriately analysed from which different types of functionality were derived, primarily information, guidance and protection. Consequently a risk assessment was carried out by a panel of experts to verify whether the functionalities effectively contributed to the safety objectives. Finally the Work Zone Safety Project could set forward minimum performance levels for these equipment to enable them to be effective in their own objectives regarding functionality and safety. (Author/publisher)
Abstract