Title, "The Effect of turning traffic on through

moving discharge rates at signalised

intersection
Presented By:
Aditya Karan
TP/561
Need of the study:
Under heavy and heterogeneous conditions there can be a blockage of the through traffic by the
turning vehicles (right)
Due to this, the delay results, approach capacity and corresponding LOS will be overly estimated
by the HCM method.
So there should be an equation which can relate the through traffic discharge with the right turn
spill over and a threshold at which the right turn traffic should be segregated from the through
traffic.
Objectives:
To study the effect of turning vehicles on the through traffic discharge
To find the equivalency factor of right turning vehicles with respect to straight moving vehicles
To develop a regression model which relates the through traffic discharge with the turning traffic
spill over.
To develop a benchmark for segregation of turning traffic.
To study the effect of turning traffic on the cycle time and to use micro simulation tools for the
validation.
 Formulation of Aim
Literature Study
and Objectives

Identification of signalised intersection for study

Data Collection

Collection of Collection of
Geometric Traffic Flow data
Parameters
Data Analysis
Microsimulation
Headway Software
Methodology Characteristics

Comparison of
Effects of turning results and
traffic on finding a
through traffic benchmark

Determination of Validation
Model
Literature study:
Paper Title
Impact of Left-Turn Spillover on
Through Movement Discharge at
Signalized Intersections
Modelling Right-Turn Blockage and
Approach Capacity at Signalized
Intersections with Channelized
Right-Turn Lanes
Right Turn Saturation flow at
signalised intersection
A Method of Signal Timing
Optimization for Spillover
Dissipation in Urban Street
Networks
Author Learnings
Scott Washburn et al. Creation of Analytical (Regression) and probabilistic models to relate
the through traffic with turning traffic.
Saeedeh Farivar et al. This paper presents a probabilistic capacity model for signalized
intersections with channelized right-turn lanes considering the
possibility of the right-turn vehicles being blocked from accessing
the channelization lane
S. Chandra et al. In this study, the saturation flow of right-turn lanes was
compared with that of through lanes at several signalised
intersections in New Delhi, India. Mathematical models to
calculate the PCU for a right-turning vehicle were developed,
and its variation with traffic mix was explained.
Equivalency factors, defined as the ratio of through saturation flow
to right-turn saturation flow, were developed for particular values of
turn radius
Dongfang Ma et al This paper first presents a calculation method for the occupancy per
cycle under different traffic conditions and identifies the threshold
of occupancy that characterizes the formation of spillovers. Then,
capacity adjustments are determined for the incoming and outgoing
streams of bottleneck links, with the aim of dissipating the queue to
a permissible length within a given period of time, and optimization
schemes are defined to calculate splits for the upstream and
downstream intersections.
Literature Study:
Probabilistic Models
Models for computing the probabilities of lane overflow and blockage were developed.
A threshold probability defined as the tolerable frequency of occurrence of both problems was specified
for both cases. Selection of this threshold value depended on a number of factors including economic,
capacity, safety, and site-specific conditions
This threshold affected the necessary length of right turn lanes. Other factors affecting the length of right
turn lanes were traffic volumes, vehicle mix, signal timing, time required to make a left turn, and the space
required for a stationary vehicle

Where
N = number of vehicles in left turn lane
i = steady state probability of a given queue existing
in left turn lane
i = threshold probability
Left turn lane lengths N** from the blockage perspective were determined from:
PB(N) = probability of blockage when left turn storage
length is sufficient to store at most
N vehicles
i = threshold probability
Literature Study:
Qi et al. (2007) developed a method for estimating left turn lane storage lengths lanes at signalized
intersections. The length of the left turn queue is estimated based on vehicle arrivals during the red phase
and residual queues from previous cycles.
Residual queues were analysed based on discrete-time Markov chains
Factors taken into account included opposing traffic volume, cycle length, phasing, vehicle mix, and the
turning vehicles headways
The maximum length of the left turn queue during the red phase was determined based on the probability
of arrivals during the red phase; using a Poisson approach and is given by

The residual queue at the length of the green

phase is given by:

Where
AR = arrivals in the red phase
QR = maximum queue length during red phase (veh)
N = number of left turn arrivals in red phase (veh)
t = average arrival rate of left turn vehicle (veh)
R = duration of red phase (s)
1= desired probability level
Where NO = number of left over vehicles
QL = maximum left over queue length (veh)
i = stationary probability of I vehicles left over at the
end of green phase
2 = desired probability level
Analytical Approach:
For the creation of the regression model, different factors are identified :
Percentage of turning traffic
Number of lanes for through movement
Right turn green time
Through Green Time
Cycle length
Heavy Vehicle Percentage
Approach Demand

For the study Four signalised intersections are taken and video graphic survey is done on these 4
intersections.
Out of these two are 4 arm and others are 3 arm intersections.
Approach:
Percentage of turning traffic: All else being equal, the higher the proportion of right turning vehicles in the
volume approaching the intersection, the higher the likelihood of spill over.
Number of lanes for through movement: As the number of through lanes increases, the less impact spill
over conditions will have on through movement discharge rate due to the ability of through vehicles to move
over into lanes further to the right or weave around the spill over condition.
Right Turn Green Time: For a given cycle length, more right turn green time translates to less red time for
the movement and thus less time for right turn vehicles to queuereducing the probability of spill over.
Through green time: For a given cycle length, more through green time results in more red time (assuming
the cross street times are fixed) for the right turn phase, which results in longer right turn queues and an
increased probability of spill over.
Cycle length: Assuming the phase split percentages are constant, a longer cycle length will increase the
probability of spill over due to longer red times and consequently longer right turn queue lengths per cycle.
Heavy Vehicle Percentage: Heavy vehicles generally have longer lengths than passenger cars and hence right
turning traffic volume, the higher the probability of spill over.
Approach demand: For any given right turn percentage (greater than zero), a larger approach demand flow
rate will translate to a larger number of right turns; thus increasing the number of right turn queued vehicles
and the probability of spill over, as else being equal.
Approach:

The HCM (2000) does provide a separate procedure in appendix G of the signalized intersection analysis
methodology to calculate the back of queue.
The HCM (2000) defines the back of queue as the number of vehicles that are queued, depending on the
arrival patterns of vehicles and on the number of vehicles that do not clear the intersection during the green
phase (overflow).
The back of queue calculation comprises of two terms; Q1; defined as the first term queued vehicles and Q2;
defined as the second termed queued vehicles

Q1 = first term queued vehicles (veh)

PF2 = adjustment factor for effects of progression
vL = lane group flow rate per lane (veh/h)
C = cycle length (s)
g = effective green time (s)
XL = ratio of flow rate to capacity (vL/cL ratio
Approach:
From these, the average back of queue can be determined as the sum of the terms; Q1 and Q2
The back of queue measure is specified as useful for dealing with the blockage of available queue storage
distance determined from the queue storage ratio; which is defined as the ratio of estimated queue length
to the available storage space
The queue storage ratio uses the back of queue, queued vehicle spacing and available storage to determine
if blockage will occur.
Blockage is defined to occur when this queue storage ratio equals or exceeds a value of 1.

the HCM offers no guidance on how to determine the subsequent quantitative impact
to the through movement discharge rate of the adjacent through lane
 Data Locations:

S.No Location Right Turn movement Typology

1 Surya Hotel Chowk From Badarpur towards new Friends colony 3 arm
intersection

2 Ram Charan Agarwal Chowk From India gate towards SPA 4 arm
intersection
3 Barakhamba road From Mandi house towards paharganj 4 arm
intersection
4 Outer ring road From CWG village towards ITO 3 arm
intersection
Data analysis
Towards Ashram
Cycle length 218 seconds

55 s
156 s

Towards NFC
62 s 99 s 50 s

50 s
168 s

Amber time: 7 seconds

Towards Badarpur Phase Diagram of the signal

Green time for right turning: 55 seconds

Green time for through movement is 171 seconds
Percentage of right moving traffic 18%
45 80

40
70

Right Turning vs through traffic flow

35
60 vs the Percentage blockage of the
approach
30

50

25

40

20

30

15

20
10

10
5

0 0

percentage right st