Operational effects of U-turns at median opening

ABSTRACT

Limited priority conditions are observed in developing countries which cause the approaching through vehicles (higher priority movement) to compromise their movement in terms of speed reduction or lane changing or may be a combination of the both. This compels the vehicles to (i) experience undesirable delay, (ii) perform forced lane changes, and (iii) experience an overall flow reduction in the approaching through traffic stream. In the present study, these effects have been studied in detail. Multiple linear regressions have been performed to develop mathematical equations and have been validated using field data. Zone concept has been introduced in the present study to account for the non-lane-based movement of vehicles. Markov chain and N-Curve are used to study the lane changing pattern and reduction in flow, respectively. Area occupancy has been used as a measure of effectiveness to define the LOS categories for median opening area using K-mean clustering.

KEYWORDS:

• Median openings
• delay
• reduction in flow
• lane changing behavior
• area occupancy
• los
• clustering
• regression

Data availability

All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the submitted article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.