About the project

The Northeast Collaborative to Optimize Work Zone Safety Guidelines is a UMassSafe project under the FHWA 2023 Work Zone Safety Grant Program, Area 2: Highway Work Zone Safety Guidelines Development.

Geographic and program scope

The project spans nine Northeastern states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It pairs a qualitative state-of-the-practice review with a regional crash-data analysis (2018–2022) and a large-scale driver survey, integrating all three into a single improvement plan.

Methodology

State of the Practice review

Key informant interviews with work zone, traffic control, and safety personnel at each state DOT, synthesized into a nine-state by twelve-topic comparison.

Crash data analysis

Analysis of work zone crash trends across the region for 2018–2022, including fatal and non-fatal injury patterns, summarized in per-state “Crashes at a Glance” briefs.

Driver experience survey

A geo-targeted survey of 1,192 Northeast drivers administered via Qualtrics under IRB Protocol #6509, capturing perceptions, attitudes, and self-reported behavior in work zones.

Integrated analytical framework

Findings from all three streams are reconciled into the Northeast Work Zone Safety Improvement Plan (NEWZSIP) and its priority safety themes.

Project team