Development of a VISSIM Simulation Model for U-Turns at Unsignalized Intersections
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 138, Issue 11
Abstract
The simulation of U-turns is currently of great interest to many transportation professionals due to the widespread use of indirect driveway left-turn treatments. In this study, a procedure was proposed to help transportation professionals model U-turn movements at unsignalized intersections with nontraversable median cross sections in the traffic simulation program VISSIM. The behavioral features of U-turning drivers, such as the priority rule, lane selection, and turning speed of U-turns, were determined using data collected from 13 different locations. A procedure based on a genetic algorithm was proposed to calibrate and validate the VISSIM simulation model. The simulation results of the calibrated VISSIM model were compared to field measured capacity and to the capacity estimated using gap acceptance models developed in previous studies. The calibrated VISSIM simulation model yields mean absolute percent errors of 17.6 and 20.7% for four-lane and six-lane streets, respectively. The results show that VISSIM provides reasonable capacity estimates for U-turns at unsignalized intersections with raised median cross sections, after crucial parameters are properly defined and calibrated.
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Acknowledgments
This research was jointly sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 505908050) and the National High-tech R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2011AA110303-03). The authors also would like to thank the graduate research assistant at the School of Transportation at the Southeast University for their assistance in field data collection.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 138 • Issue 11 • November 2012
Pages: 1333 - 1339
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 7, 2011
Accepted: Apr 25, 2012
Published online: Apr 28, 2012
Published in print: Nov 1, 2012
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