3. Background and Purpose
FHWA began the WZ SA in 2003 and conducts the assessment annually. In 2011, each FHWA Division Office was asked to re-examine and update the results of its 2010 WZ SA, working with transportation agency staff from its State partner. Each Division Office had the option of performing a simple update or a more in-depth reassessment. A simple update would focus on revising past ratings to reflect current practices based on observations and an ongoing knowledge of work zone practices. For a more in-depth reassessment, the WZ SA is conducted as a group exercise and involves a structured discussion among stakeholders to develop consensus ratings for each of the questions. Agencies may choose to alternate between the two approaches from year to year.
While the WZ SA rating provides a metric for measurement, the most important information is derived from the discussions conducted among the participants. The interchange among stakeholders provides an opportunity for an agency to identify specific areas for improvement and provides the basis for structuring approaches to improve work zone policies, programs, and practices.
The WZ SA is intended to help agencies identify areas of strength and areas for improvement and to then use that information to identify needs and gaps in practices that could benefit from additional focus. While a goal of the WZ SA is to identify opportunities for improvement, the "next step" is to identify techniques and actions that can fill those gaps to improve upon current work zone operations.
The WZ SA consists of six primary assessment areas and one supplemental question. The six primary areas are:
- Section 1: Leadership and Policy
- Section 2: Project Planning and Programming
- Section 3: Project Design
- Section 4: Project Construction and Operation
- Section 5: Communications and Education
- Section 6: Program Evaluation.
Each of the six primary assessment area contains a set of questions about a particular work zone-related policy, strategy, process, or tool. For each question, respondents were asked to evaluate the extent to which a particular practice has been incorporated into an agency's way of doing business. The questions were rated according to the level of adoption phase, using a scale of 0 to 15 that is broken into a set of five progressive levels based on the quality improvement process model used by industry. A rating of 7 or more on a question signifies that a State is implementing/executing the item in that question. Several questions in the WZ SA are based on the magnitude of impact that a project may have on a particular area. These project types and definitions for each of the rating levels are described in Appendix A.
The WZ SA can also provide helpful information that agencies can use in performing the process reviews required every other year by the Work Zone Safety and Mobility Rule. To support efforts to meet the ongoing process review requirement, the prior supplemental questions in the WZ SA have been replaced with a two-part question on the process review. This question is intended to gauge progress by agencies in performing work zone process reviews in accordance with 23 CFR 630 Subpart J.
Agencies completed the following two-part supplemental question in 2011:
| Has the agency performed a comprehensive work zone process review in the last two years in accordance with 23 CFR 630 Subpart J?
____ Yes Please provide the date when your last process review was completed. Month __________ |
