Are Work Zones and Connected Automated Vehicles Ready for a Harmonious Coexistence? A Scoping Review and Research Agenda

The recent advent of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) is expected to transform the transportation system. CAV technologies are being developed rapidly and they are foreseen to penetrate the market at a rapid pace. On the other hand, work zones (WZs) have become common areas on highway systems as a result of the increasing construction and maintenance activities. The near future will therefore bring the coexistence of CAVs and WZs which makes their interaction inevitable. WZs expose all vehicles to a sudden and complex geometric change in the roadway environment, something that may challenge many of CAV navigation capabilities. WZs however also impose a space contraction resulting in adverse traffic operational and safety impacts, something that legitimately calls for benefiting from the highly efficient CAV mobility and safety functions. CAVs should be able to reliably traverse WZ geometry and WZs should benefit from CAV intelligent functions. This paper explores the key concepts of deploying CAV systems at WZs with a focus on mobility, safety, and infrastructure considerations. CAV concepts were distributed over the WZ area which was subdivided into five segments: further upstream, approach area, queuing area, WZ activity, and termination area. The paper also provides a review on the recent literature and summarizes a research agenda. The paper aims to provide a bird`s eye view, but with necessary details that can benefit practitioners, planners, and transportation agencies. Existing findings show that CAVs can credibly solve many WZ mobility and safety challenges, CAV benefits however are very sensitive to market penetration rate, traffic volume, communication technologies, and the assumed driver behaviour. A plenty of research work has yet to be organized and conducted in order to better harmonize the forthcoming coexistence between CAVs and WZs.