01049610

Component

Traffic signal warrants set the minimum conditions under which a traffic signal installation may be appropriate. The four-hour signal warrant in the current Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) was originally developed to overcome some of the shortcomings of the eight-hour signal warrant. The four-hour signal warrant is applied based on a set of critical vehicular volumes for different lane combinations of major and minor streets. An intersection meets this warrant if, in each of any four hours of an average day, the major and minor street volumes fall above the corresponding critical volumes. This paper describes an effort to use the CORSIM microscopic simulation model to evaluate the current design of the critical volume curves in the four-hour warrant. The results show significant differences in average control delay for the minor-street traffic under different volume combinations, lane configurations, turning volume percentages, heavy vehicle percentages, and number of major-street lanes (four versus six lanes), most of which are not currently considered in the four-hour warrant. This finding provides some preliminary evidence on the need to revise the current design standards of the existing four-hour warrant and to conduct further research for possible improvements to the warrant.

01042056

07-2892

English

14p

2007

Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting

CD-ROM

Figures (7) ; References (4) ; Tables (2)

Microscopic traffic flow; Operations; Peak hour traffic; Traffic signal control systems; Traffic signals; Traffic simulation; Traffic volume; Warrants (Traffic control devices)

CORSIM (Traffic simulation model); Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices

Administration and Management; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I73: Traffic Control

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2007 Paper #07-2892

TRIS, TRB

Feb 8 2007 7:36PM