Effect of Nighttime Lighting on Construction Workers' Safety

Current roadway lighting is designed specifically to provide illumination for vehicles and pedestrians in support of residential street and highway operations. However, the illumination levels are usually less than 20% of what is required for work operations [1] and do not take nighttime construction operations into consideration. Many state Departments of Transportation (DOT) use some form of nighttime work zone lighting based on the Federal Highway Administration's Nighttime Lighting Guidelines [2] and NCHRP’s Illumination Guidelines [3] to conduct construction and maintenance activities on or near the travel portion of the road system. However, in the past 10 years, light emitting diode (LED) technology has evolved and the illuminance of lighting sources has been increased; the resources for nighttime lighting design from the two national guidelines have been outdated and need improvements and updates. More recently, Indiana DOT [4] and Virginia DOT [5] have conducted research projects about the glare assessment based on the lighting system’s parameters and luminance levels of lighting sources, but their demonstration settings were performed in a controlled environment and no real field test was used to assess the effectiveness of the proposed lighting set-ups. The geometry and characteristics of construction operations and highway profiles vary by place, so lighting arrangements should be conducted in a practical way that would be suitable for the structure of highways in Nebraska. Therefore, this proposal is prepared to provide Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT), construction organizations (e.g., Associated General Contractors of America, AGC Nebraska Chapter), and contractors with a list of recommendation of nighttime lighting arrangements for construction operations at night as well as to supplement informed knowledge about construction lighting setups and update guidelines to the NDOT “Standard Specifications for Highway Construction”.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $147497
• Sponsor Organizations:

  Nebraska Department of Transportation

  1500 Nebraska 2
  Lincoln, NE  United States  68502
• Project Managers:

  Halsey, Lieska

• Principal Investigators:

  Ho, Chun-Hsing

  Kim, Kyungki

• Start Date: 20240701
• Expected Completion Date: 20260531
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Construction and maintenance personnel; Lighting; Night; Occupational safety; Safety; Work zone safety
• Geographic Terms: Nebraska
• Subject Areas: Construction; Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01920481
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Nebraska Department of Transportation
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jun 3 2024 4:17PM