Impact of Adaptive Signal Control on Major and Minor Approach Delay

One of the primary difficulties in completing evaluations of real-time adaptive traffic signal systems has been the lack of effective modeling tools to perform controlled and repeatable analytical experiments. Recently, a method to analyze the delay characteristics of an existing real-time adaptive traffic signal control system has been developed. The procedure has been used to evaluate the performance of the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) in South Lyon, Michigan. The objective of this study was to more closely examine the relationship of major and minor street delay under the SCATS and fixed-time forms of signal control. The effect on left turn delay at critical locations was also compared to the delay change in the through traffic. The comparisons showed that SCATS control resulted in significant delay reductions to left turn traffic compared to the through movements. The improvement was especially pronounced at the major street approaches. To further address the delay effect of SCATS control in South Lyon, the relationships between volume, delay, and green time of the various traffic moments were also compared. These comparisons showed that SCATS tended to allocate more green time to left turn traffic when compared to the fixed-time system.