Open AccessEvaluating the sustainable traffic flow operational features of an exclusive spur dike U-turn lane design
Author(s) -
Yang Shao,
Xueyan Han,
Huan Wu,
Huimin Shan,
Sen Yang,
Christian Claudel
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0214759
Subject(s) - vissim , merge (version control) , turn (biochemistry) , traffic conflict , computer science , software , traffic simulation , simulation , transport engineering , travel time , traffic congestion , microsimulation , engineering , floating car data , biochemistry , chemistry , information retrieval , programming language
The traditional U-turn design has significantly improved traffic operations for relieving traffic congestion. However, the U-turn diversion and merge segments still cause traffic conflicts and delays. In this paper, an exclusive spur dike U-turn lane (ESUL) is proposed with the aim of addressing the disadvantages of the traditional U-turn design. ESUL provides a separate U-turn lane to diverge, decelerate, U-turn, accelerate and merge without interacting with through traffic. The effectiveness of ESUL is demonstrated through a field data investigation, simulation and analysis with VISSIM software. The proposed design is evaluated in terms of three parameters: travel time, delay and number of stops. Compared to the traditional U-turn design, ESUL can reduce travel time by 29.15%, delay by 66.70% and the number of stops by 100% at most. The results showed that ESUL has better performance than the traditional U-turn design and could be implemented to reduce traffic congestion and the potential hazards caused by U-turn maneuvers.