Red light running and close following behaviour at urban shuttle-lane roadworks

Roadworks (work zones) are a common feature of our urban environment. They have a considerable impact on reducing roadway capacity, causing interruptions and imposing substantial delays to road users, which in turn adds to the cost to society and adverse impact on road safety. Shuttle-lane (alternate one-way working) is one of the most commonly used traffic management arrangements at urban roadworks as most of the urban road network is built up from single carriageway. Despite the importance of this topic, little attention has been paid to studying drivers' behaviour in terms of close following (tailgating) and amber crossing/red light violations at temporary traffic signals. This paper reports on factors affecting aggressive drivers' behaviour using observations from six sites within Greater Manchester, United Kingdom with over 25 h of video recordings of traffic data from around 1500 signal cycles. The findings show that 24% of drivers violate the "two-second rule" of safe following, as recommended in the Highway Code, before approaching the roadworks site compared to 38% violations after crossing the roadworks site. These results of increased tailgating behaviour are consistent across all sites and for both traffic streams and have a direct effect on rear-end collisions or near accidents. Also, the percentages of drivers' non-compliance with temporary traffic signals are higher compared to those for normal signalised junctions. The results show that around 30% of cycles were violated where drivers cross the stop line on the onset of amber and red (18.9% pass through amber and 11.3% run through red lights). Red light violations were categorised under four categories as observed on site (dilemma zone, dilemma zone follower, single violation and group violations). Factors such as site visibility, traffic signals operation (i.e. fixed time or VA) were also reported.