Citation

Jiang X, Zhang G, Bai W, Fan W. Accid. Anal. Prev. 2016; 95: 461-469.

Affiliation

School of Transportation and Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, National United Engineering Laboratory of Integrated and Intelligent Transportation, 111 Erhuan Road, Beiyiduan, Chengdu 610031, China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.aap.2015.09.006

PMID

26410241

Abstract

In recent years the metropolitans in China have seen the surging installations of the left-turn waiting area (LWA) at the signalized intersections. The design allows the left-turning vehicles to enter the intersection at the onset of the through green phase (of the same approach) and wait for the exclusive left-turn signal at the LWA. The LWA layout can effectively reduce the probability of stranded and queue overflow of the left-turn vehicles, but no study is conducted yet to assess the safety performance of the signalized intersections with LWA. The paper adopts the traffic conflict technique (represented by post-encroachment time), compares the discrepancy of conflict types between intersections with LWA and without, and develops the severity models to identify the contributing factors for the left-turn conflicts.

RESULTS demonstrate that the left-turn volume, driving outside the LWA, running red light, the presence of secondary conflicts, and the rear-end conflicts significantly increase the severities of traffic conflicts at the LWA. The findings serve to provide recommendations to revise the current design standard of the LWA (GB5768-2009) and consequently improve the safety operations of signalized intersections with LWA in China.

Language: en