Traffic safety in road construction zones has always been a major concern for engineering practitioners,departments of transportation, law enforcement professionals, researchers and many others. Due to the deterioratedcondition of road and underground infrastructure facilities in the United States, the number of rehabilitation projectsand their associated traffic accidents have increased over the past few years. To perform the needed road and undergroundutility rehabilitation activities in safer environments, researchers need to understand the causes behind these accidents.Although many researchers have been exploring the safety of many construction activities, research pertaining to roadconstruction projects is lacking and insufficient. Despite the fact that few research efforts have been made to fill in thisreported gap, many important collision factors have not yet been explored. This paper augments earlier safety researchwork by analyzing 11 years’ worth of data and presenting a wide range of primary factors that contribute to trafficaccidents in road construction zones. The paper also presents the impact of many factors, such as environmental androad conditions on the type and severity of collisions. The findings presented in this paper will not only contribute tothe reduction of construction zone related traffic accidents by avoiding their causes, but it will also assist contractorsand transportation authorities in better planning and scheduling their projects in a manner that positively contributesto the safety of served communities. This will be achieved by presenting factors that highly influence the decision on thestart dates and duration of projects such as, day(s) of the week and month(s) of the year that are mostly associated withhigher rates of traffic collisions.
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