01478023

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/2389-07

http://scholar.google.com...mail&publication_year=2013

With recent important upgrades to North American intersection design guides, roundabouts are gaining popularity as a method of reducing road conflicts, streamlining flow, and curbing excessive speeding at busy intersections. The current design approach, however, makes use of mean spot speed measures and design criteria that do not take into account yielding behavior and acceleration and deceleration, all of which may be affected by regional driving culture and local roundabout design. This research paper introduces the methodology being developed for the detailed analysis of driving behavior, trajectory interpretation, and conflict measures in modern North American roundabouts, based on video data extracted by means of computer vision. The analysis explores the methods used to prepare microscopic speed maps, compiled speed profiles, lane-change counts, and gap time measures. The paper introduces and discusses the interpretation of trajectories at the scale of roundabout merge sections instead of looking at safety from the point of view of a roundabout as a unified system. The research found significant variation in distributions of speed across five case study roundabouts in the province of Quebec, Canada; this result may be explained by regional differences in design and road use. The paper also found aggressive gap times and uneven traffic flow as contributing factors to speed.

01517322

13-5255

English

pp 65–77

2013

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

9780309287142

Print

Figures (12) ; References (24) ; Tables (1)

Behavior; Drivers; Gap acceptance; Lane changing; Merging traffic; Roundabouts; Speed

Quebec (Province)

Design; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors; I73: Traffic Control

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 5 2013 1:00PM

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• Prediction of Capacity for Roundabouts Based on Percentages of Trucks in Entry and Circulating Flows
• Roundabout Critical Headway Measurement Based on High-Resolution Event-Based Data from Wireless Magnetometers
• Safety Effects of Converting Intersections to Roundabouts