As expressways age, routine maintenance has become a critical aspect of expressway operations. However, such maintenance often necessitates partial lane closures, which can lead to traffic congestion and heightened safety risks. To address these challenges, this study proposes four optimized strategies for the deployment of safety facilities in work zones, drawing on prior research in this area. These strategies include the work area safety facilities logo plus red flag, road laying red strobe lights, the whole process to provide voice navigation and warning strategies comprehensive optimization scheme. To assess the effectiveness of each strategy, a driving simulation experiment was conducted. Driver behavior data were collected and analyzed to evaluate the impact of the different safety configurations on driving performance. The rank sum ratio (RSR) comprehensive evaluation method was used to assess and compare the performance of each scheme. The results show that the comprehensive optimization scheme of adding red flags to the safety facilities signs in the work area, laying red strobe lights on the road surface and providing voice navigation throughout the whole process has the highest improvement in driver safety. These findings suggest that integrating voice navigation into safety systems may further enhance safety in expressway work zones.