Table 1: Sample Work Zone Performance Measures and Goals for Safety and Operations
Category Element PM# 5 – Excellent 4 – Good 3 – Fair 2 – Poor 1 – Very Poor Notes
Safety1 Injuries – (workers) contractor / subcontractors on site personnel, government representatives, consultant, vendors, delivery personnel 1 Incident Rate (IR) for worker injuries is less than 2.0 Incident Rate (IR) for worker injuries is less than 4.0 Incident Rate (IR) for Worker injuries is less than 5.5 Incident Rate (IR) for Worker injuries is less than 6.5 Incident Rate (IR) for Worker injuries is greater than or equal to 6.5 a. Each State Agency shall establish a target Incident Rate to be used for each project based on local and Statewide available Incident Rate data analysis. The shown Incident Rates are provided as an example.
Safety1 Vehicular Crashes 2 Site Crash Rate during construction divided by the Crash Rate prior to construction is less than 1.0 Site Crash Rate during construction divided by the Crash Rate prior to construction is equal to 1.0 Site Crash Rate during construction divided by the Crash Rate prior to construction is less than 1.2 Site Crash Rate during construction divided by the Crash Rate prior to construction is less than 1.3 Site Crash Rate during construction divided by the Crash Rate prior to construction is equal to or greater than 1.3
  1. Each State Agency / Contractor shall record the Crash Rate during construction. For long-term projects, the annual Crash Rate during construction should be used and divided by the Crash Rate prior to construction. For short-term projects, the overall Crash Rate during construction should be used.
  2. The “Site” extends upstream of the work zone, since crashes often happen upstream of the work zone due to queuing.
  3. Disincentives should not be applied to this Performance Measure.
Construction Congestion Travel time/delay during construction 3 No motorist delay (as compared to reconstruction travel time) Rural: Average motorist delay less than 15 minutes (as compared to preconstruction travel time) Urban: Average motorist delay less than 20 minutes (as compared to preconstruction travel time) Rural: Average motorist delay less than 20 minutes (as compared to preconstruction travel time) Urban: Average motorist delay less than 30 minutes (as compared to preconstruction travel time) Rural: Average motorist delay less than 30 minutes (as compared to preconstruction travel time) Urban: Average motorist delay less than 45 minutes (as compared to preconstruction travel time) Rural: Average motorist delay ≥ 30 minutes (as compared to preconstruction travel time) Urban: Average motorist delay ≥ 45 minutes (as compared to pre-construction travel time)
  1. Specify days that are excluded– for example, holidays, weekends, etc., and whether the contractor can work on those days.
  2. Good baseline information is needed for this measure.
  3. Delay value can be scaled based on project/traffic characteristics.
  4. If the owner agency is concerned with total delay to the public, then this measure also should be applied to the alternate routes.
Construction Congestion Queue Length During Construction 4 No queue No stopped queue (speed less than 10 mph) Rural: < ½ mile stopped queue (speed less than 10 mph) Urban: < 1 mile stopped queue (speed less than 10 mph) Rural: < 1 mile stopped queue (speed less than 10 mph) Urban: < 2 mile stopped queue (speed less than 10 mph) Rural: ≥ 1 mile stopped queue (speed less than 10 mph) Urban: ≥ 2 mile stopped queue (speed less than 10 mph)
  1. Specify days that are excluded– for example, holidays, weekends, etc., and whether the contractor can work on those days.
  2. Might not be implementable for heavy traffic areas, as they may already be experiencing significant queues.
  3. Indicate allowable queue times to the contractor.
  4. Specify if the contractor needs to take action if the queue goes above a specified level.

1 See: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/hfl/framework/06.cfm This Web site also includes sample performance measures for other categories.

Note: These measures/goals/values are shown as an example starting point for consideration and would need to be tailored to the project/agency.