Smarter Work Zone: Advancing Situation Management for Work Zone Safety and Mobility

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Work zones are hazardous environments that can affect the safety of workers, motorists, and other users of roadways and cause traffic congestion and delays. Smart Work Zones are construction zones with innovative strategies to minimize the negative safety and mobility impacts. Such negative impacts have been extensively studied and addressed through a number of strategies, recent practices, and research studies. However, there still is a significant need for an integrated system that provides seamless interconnections between the two worlds of Construction and Transportation Systems. Such an integrated system needs to realize the dynamic interactions between workers, equipment, vehicles, and other users of the roadways (i.e. physical systems), the information and communication systems (i.e. cyber systems), as well as the human cognition, intelligence, and social behavior (i.e. social system). In such a complex, diverse, and dynamic system of interacting humans, machines, and information the individual or collective system behavior depends on the awareness and control of situations (i.e. situation management).***To advance the situation management models in construction, this program proposes to use models that simulate the mental ability of human cognition, such as consciousness (awareness), reasoning, memory, beliefs, adaptation, and learning. Thus, the proposed program utilizes cognitive situation management through a Cyber-Physical-Social system approach in the dynamic system of the work zone. This study will advance the state-of-the-art methods, tools, techniques, and strategies used in construction operation and management as well as the ones used in work zone traffic management.***The proposed study meets the interests of governmental organizations, policymakers, and industry practitioners along with discovering fundamental knowledge in construction management. Success in this research program will result in notable economic, social, and environmental benefits for Canada through a reduction in injurious and fatal accidents, decreased traffic congestion, and reduced costly delays for construction as well as for the movement of goods and people. This program will have a targeted focus on the construction and transportation sectors with transferable outcomes to the mining, manufacturing, and agriculture industries.