Results

The STARs evaluation tool has been developed. This tool is intended for use by road works contracting authorities in setting performance targets for road works schemes, contractors in achieving these performance targets and road authorities in planning and assessing proposed road work schemes. It can be used to assess real, proposed or hypothetical road works schemes in terms of the safety of road workers and road users and the network performance, but also to assess the impact of varying management strategies in order to minimise the risk in all three areas at the same time. Alternative strategies are ranked to identify the optimal solution.
The tool consists of three 'modules':

1. The first module is the user input module where the user describes the project, i.e. the road work scheme to be evaluated. This includes specifying the parameters to be varied in order to assess different management strategies.

2. The second module is the core of the evaluation tool. Each combination of parameters selected by the user is scored according to each of the three risk equations, which have been designed to assess the performance of the alternatives pertaining to the three risk areas.

3. The third module solves the multicriteria problem in order to rank the alternatives and identify the optimal solution in terms of all three risk areas as well as calculating a combined score.

	Results The STARs evaluation tool has been developed. This tool is intended for use by road works contracting authorities in setting performance targets for road works schemes, contractors in achieving these performance targets and road authorities in planning and assessing proposed road work schemes. It can be used to assess real, proposed or hypothetical road works schemes in terms of the safety of road workers and road users and the network performance, but also to assess the impact of varying management strategies in order to minimise the risk in all three areas at the same time. Alternative strategies are ranked to identify the optimal solution. The tool consists of three 'modules': 1. The first module is the user input module where the user describes the project, i.e. the road work scheme to be evaluated. This includes specifying the parameters to be varied in order to assess different management strategies. 2. The second module is the core of the evaluation tool. Each combination of parameters selected by the user is scored according to each of the three risk equations, which have been designed to assess the performance of the alternatives pertaining to the three risk areas. 3. The third module solves the multicriteria problem in order to rank the alternatives and identify the optimal solution in terms of all three risk areas as well as calculating a combined score.