01663585

Component

https://doi.org/10.1177/0361198118786672

Most transportation engineers around the world, and now in the United States, are relatively familiar with roundabouts and their operational and safety benefits. Although roundabouts are becoming increasingly common, drivers and even engineering professionals often contend with mixed messages about roundabout design and operation. In a world speckled with all manner of spiral roundabouts, signalized roundabouts, traffic circles, gyratories, and rotaries, is it any wonder that confusion, and public resistance, often persists? These mixed messages may represent the greatest hurdle to implementation, public acceptance, and safe operation of multi-lane roundabouts in particular. Within North America and across the globe, circular intersection designs that appear relatively similar to users can in fact require significantly different driver behaviors, depending on whether they are configured with a continuous circle road or a network of crossing roadways. This distinction can be of critical importance for roadway designers and agencies, elected officials and other policymakers, road user education and licensing, traffic enforcement, mapping and GPS navigation, and safe operation of autonomous vehicles. This paper aims to provide an overview of existing definitions, explore the nature of conflict points for each design, provide a framework modeling method for analysis, and provide globally applicable definitions for roundabout features for use in design, education, policy, enforcement, and research. This paper is focused primarily on roundabout design guidance and operations within the United States, but places these practices within the global context, such that the definitions and analyses provided can be applied to all forms of roundabout intersections around the world.

18-00542

English

pp 63-72

2018-12

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

Digital/other

Figures (9) ; Photos; References (5)

Definitions; Highway design; Roundabouts

United States

Design; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 8 2018 10:09AM

• A Comparative Analysis of Factors Affecting the Frequency and Severity of Freight-Involved and Non-Freight Crashes on a Major Freight Corridor Freeway
• A First Investigation of Truck Drivers’ Preferences and Behaviors using a Prototype Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control System
• Challenges in Hazard Detection for Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers: A Driving Simulator Training Study
• Characteristics and Profiles of Moped Crashes in Urban Areas: An In-Depth Study
• How Roundabout Entry Design Parameters Influence Safety
• Impact of Geometric Factors on the Capacity of Single-Lane Roundabouts
• Risky Ride or Carefree Drive? An Analysis of Virginia’s Moped Safety and Registration Law on Operator Collision and Injury Outcomes
• Roadway-Related Truck Crash Risk Analysis: Case Studies in Texas
• Understanding Emerging Motorcyclist Segments in Crashes using Florida Crash Data and Statewide Survey
• Using Deep Learning in Severity Analysis of At-Fault Motorcycle Rider Crashes
• Utilization of Gaps at Single-Lane Roundabouts