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Investigate the Air Quality Benefits of Nighttime Construction in Non-Attainment Counties

What Was the Need?

Night work is most commonly initiated where it is impractical to close traffic lanes on certain high-volume roadways during normal daylight hours. Currently, there is no comprehensive evaluation of the changes in emissions associated with moving construction activities to the nighttime. It is commonly expected that when construction activities are shifted to the nighttime, reduced congestion levels could result in fewer vehicle emissions. The extent and scale of this impact has not been studied in detail.

What's the Solution?

"This research project developed an understanding of emissions and air quality impacts of shifting work zone and construction activities to the nighttime. These findings were then discussed in the broader context of other factors that generally influence the decision to pursue nighttime construction... Based on the findings from the case studies and state-of-the-practice assessment, a decision-support framework was developed. The framework identified criteria in addition to air quality that were relevant to the decision to pursue nighttime construction. These factors included aspects such as noise impacts, light impacts, safety impacts, congestion levels, need for lane closures, cost impacts, access to worksite, and other project-specific factors. A spreadsheet-based decision-support tool was developed and included a screening checklist along with a quantitative calculator. The quantitative calculator can be used to generate sketch-level assessments of the emissions impacts for a lane closure under nighttime and daytime construction scenarios... Since air quality is not necessarily a primary consideration in the decision to pursue nighttime construction, these findings were presented in the broader context of a decision-support framework."

Project Number

0-6864

Status

Completed

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