Mitigating and Preventing MoDOT Safety-Related Incidents Through Root-Cause Elimination and Utilization of Leading Safety Indicators [Research Brief]
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Summary
This research brief addresses the persistent safety challenges in transportation work zones, where ongoing infrastructure projects expose workers and drivers to significant risks despite existing regulations. The study, conducted by the Missouri Center for Transportation Innovation for the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT), aims to identify contributing factors to work zone incidents in Missouri and evaluate current safety performance and policy compliance. The motivation stems from the need to mitigate incident severity and frequency through root-cause elimination and the utilization of leading safety indicators. The methodology combined a systematic literature review (SLR) with empirical survey data. The SLR synthesized existing knowledge to delineate 37 contributing factors across six categories: design, roadway, work, driver, temporal, and state-related variables. To assess the relative importance of these factors and evaluate MoDOT’s performance, surveys were administered to 298 work zone professionals, including MoDOT employees and contractors. Participants had an average of 17.75 years of construction experience and 13.78 years of work zone experience. Clustering analysis was employed to partition the identified factors into distinct groups based on their perceived criticality. Additionally, MoDOT employees evaluated field compliance with specific safety policies. Key findings indicate that driver-related factors, specifically driver attention and unsafe driving behaviors, are perceived as the most critical threats to worker safety. In contrast, factors related to motorist vehicles, construction equipment conditions, and technological sophistication were rated as least critical. Clustering analysis identified three groups of factors, with the most critical group comprising driver, work, and design-related variables. Regarding MoDOT’s performance, contractors consistently rated the department lower than employees did, revealing a disparity in stakeholder perspectives. Both groups identified law enforcement as the area with the least satisfactory performance. Furthermore, while most safety policies were perceived as strongly complied with, the "Backing" policy—identified as the leading cause of occupational injuries—received lower compliance ratings. Lower ratings were also observed for safety incident investigation and improvement processes. The significance of this research lies in its identification of specific deficiencies in MoDOT’s safety culture and operational practices. The disparity between employee and contractor perceptions, along with low compliance in backing procedures and incident response mechanisms, highlights areas requiring immediate attention. By addressing these root causes and strengthening incident response protocols, MoDOT can effectively mitigate risks. The study concludes that targeting these identified weaknesses will foster a safer work environment for employees and stakeholders, ultimately enhancing the overall safety culture within Missouri’s transportation projects.
Key finding
Among 37 candidate factors, driver-related factors such as driver attention and unsafe driving were rated by 298 surveyed professionals as the most critical to work zone worker safety.
Methodology
survey
Sample size: 298
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
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| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes