QuickZone
QuickZone is an easy-to-use, spreadsheet-based traffic analysis tool that compares the traffic impacts for work zone mitigation strategies and estimates the costs, traffic delays, and potential backups associated with these impacts. The tool can be used for urban and rural work zones.
QuickZone can help State and local traffic, construction, operations, and planning staff, as well as construction contractors, identify the effect that different work zone phasing has on motorists from both a cost and delay standpoint. This benefits everyone from highway officials to construction workers to motorists and can improve overall work zone safety. QuickZone can also help agencies with the impacts analysis efforts that are encouraged in the Work Zone Safety and Mobility Rule.
Obtain QuickZone 2.0
QuickZone 2.0 is available for purchase from the McTrans™ Center, 800-226-1013, 352-392-0378, https://store.mctrans.ce.ufl.edu/quickzone. Past purchasers of the original QuickZone should also contact McTrans to obtain their free upgrade to QuickZone 2.0. To run version 2.0, users will need Windows 95 or higher and Microsoft Excel 97 or higher.
The QuickZone software is a Microsoft® Excel®-based application using Visual Basic® for Applications. QuickZone is an open-source application, which means that users may access the software's source code and customize it to suit their specific needs.
QuickZone 2.0 Capabilities
QuickZone can be used to:
- Quantify corridor delay resulting from capacity decreases in work zones.
- Identify delay impacts of alternative project phasing plans.
- Support tradeoff analyses between construction costs and delay costs.
- Examine the impacts of construction staging by location, time of day (peak versus off-peak), and season (summer versus winter).
- Assess travel demand measures and other delay mitigation strategies.
- Help establish work completion incentives.
For example, QuickZone can estimate the costs of doing work at night instead of during the day or diverting the traffic to one road versus another road during different phases of construction. The costs, traffic delays, and potential backups can be estimated for both an average day of work and for the whole life cycle of construction. QuickZone can also analyze the advantages of various strategies for minimizing the projected traffic delays. These mitigation strategies might include retiming signals on detour routes to help traffic flow more smoothly, planning a media campaign to publicize the planned work zones, or using traveler information systems that allow drivers to plan ahead and choose other routes if possible.
QuickZone 2.0 includes features such as:
- Improved two-way, one-lane operations modeling, including modeling of flagger operations.
- Improved ability to model more complex projects, including those that may have multiple work zones, with different work occurring in each work zone at various times. The program's revamped output statistics allow the user to quickly identify and zero in on problem work zones.
- Enhanced detour modeling, including tracking of increased travel time on long detour routes.
Case Studies
To better understand the performance of QuickZone in mitigating congestion due to work zones, FHWA created a series of case studies highlighting the use of QuickZone on real-world projects. The eight sites featured in the case studies showcase a range of applications and highlight innovative modeling approaches using QuickZone across a variety of roadway facilities, including both high-volume, urban freeway applications with recurring congestion and low-volume, rural road applications where congestion is rarely a problem.
- Case Study Report: The Application of QuickZone in Eight Common Construction Projects (HTML, PDF 1.2MB)
- Case Study Snapshot #1: I-40 Full Closure Feasibility Assessment
- Case Study Snapshot #2: I-95 Operational Analysis for Lane Closures at Night
- Case Study Snapshot #3: Responding to Public Concern about Delays during Bridge Repairs
- Case Study Snapshot #4: Justifying the Additional Cost of Night Work in Nova Scotia
- Case Study Snapshot #5: Cost-Effective Construction Phasing in Yosemite Valley
- Case Study Snapshot #6: Preparing for Peak Tourist Season during Repaving Operations, Zion National Park
- Case Study Snapshot #7: Cumulative Delay Analysis for Successive Work Zones on Beartooth Highway
- Case Study Snapshot #8: Economic Impact of Work Zones with Lengthy Detours in Wyoming
For More Information
- Daniel Grate, FHWA Resource Center, daniel.grate@dot.gov, 404-562-3912
- FHWA Work Zone and Traffic Analysis Web page
- QuickZone: Modeling In the Zone (Public Roads, January/February 2008)
- Upgrade for the Digital Work Zone (Roads & Bridges, June 2005)
- QuickZone 2.0 Offers Improved Work Zone Planning (Focus, April 2005)
- QuickZone (Public Roads, July/August 2001)
- A QuickZone Tailor-Made for Maryland (Focus, March 2001)
You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PDFs on this page.
