Many work zones exist in the urban road network and have a great negative impact on city traffic. Finding the optimal work zone schedule can minimize the negative impact of work zones on traffic. This paper focuses on the day-based work zone scheduling problem in the urban network. Existing studies on the day-based work zone scheduling problem do not consider the progression of day-to-day traffic from a non-equilibrium state to an equilibrium state during the construction period. For the first time, this paper proposes a model for day-based work zone scheduling by introducing a day-to-day traffic assignment model, in which the target of the optimization problem is minimizing the increase in travel cost caused by work zones. Numerical examples are presented to explore the variations of the optimal construction sequence for different work durations, crew numbers, and model parameter values. Some new findings are obtained in the paper. When the construction duration of each work zone is relatively short (for example, less than 20 days), the optimal scheduling will obviously change with the work duration; when all of the construction durations increase to a threshold (for example, 60 days), the optimal construction sequence will no longer change. An optimal crew number exists that can minimize the increment of travel cost caused by work zones. During the construction period, the total travel cost in the network can be decreased by guiding travelers to change their original travel habits.
