Identify the Risk Factors That Contribute To Fatalities and Serious Injuries and Implement Evidence-Based Risk Elimination and Mitigation Strategies

Project Information
Link to Latest Report: March 2020 Progress Report
Final Report Coming Soon

Background:
Construction activities related to bridge replacement and rehabilitation are significant contributors to safety hazards. The safety hazards attributed to construction work zones are alarming and accordingly, safety is a major focus of 2018-2022 US DOT Strategic plan. One of the potential advantages of ABC is improving safety by reducing onsite construction activities. No good documentation is available yet for ABC potential for improving safety. This project with involve collaboration between UNR and FIU and ISU to collect and interpret quantitative data related to ABC contribution to safety.

Objective:
The objective of this project is to provide quantitative data supporting the fact that ABC does improve safety relative to conventional construction.

Scope:
Onsite construction time required for a bridge replacement can be reduced from a year or more using conventional construction, to a few weeks or less using ABC technologies. This significant reduction of time in the work zone translates to vastly improved safety for the traveling public and construction crews. A benefit/cost analysis for the reduced number of days of work zones due to the use of ABC requires 1) an estimate of the number of crashes avoided, and 2) the monetary value of each avoided crash, including a breakdown of fatalities and injuries for each. The U.S. DOT’s Value of Statistical Life (VSL) can be used to determine the monetary value of each avoided crash, as discussed on the U. S. DOT Office of Safety website. Also discussed is the use of the Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale (MAIS) for fractional values to assess the benefit of preventing an injury crash.

In this project, the data described above can be compiled and interpreted through collaborative efforts between UNR, FIU, and ISU. Literature search will include work of USDOT Office of Safety and recently completed ABC-UTC total costs research projects at FIU. The output of this project can provide future evidence and justification that can be used by state DOTs to further implement ABC and consider ABC for new construction

Research Team:
Principal Investigator:  Dr. Mohamed Moustafa (UNR); Dr. Ahmad Itani (UNR)
Research Assistant:

Previous Progress Reports: