Summary:

Work zones are essential for maintaining and improving transportation infrastructure; however, they often cause significant operational impacts and increased road user costs. The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) currently relies on the Construction Congestion Cost (CO3) tool, an Excel-based work zone analysis framework originally developed in the late 1990s to estimate road users’ delay and cost. Although the CO3 tool has historically supported preliminary work zone traffic analysis and user delay estimation, its simplified deterministic assumptions, limited representation of traffic dynamics, and outdated computational processes motivated the need for an enhanced analytical framework. This report presents the development, calibration, validation, and implementation of the Michigan Predictive Analysis of Congestion and its Effects (MiPACE) framework, an integrated work zone traffic analysis and operational evaluation tool developed to improve the representation of traffic behavior under freeway, multilane
highway, and flagging work zone conditions. The tool integrates Cell Transmission Model (CTM)-based traffic simulation, calibrated speed-capacity relationships, queue and delay estimation, ramp interaction analysis, detour and diversion modeling, and operational performance evaluation within a unified analytical environment.

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