USING UNCONVENTIONAL INTERSECTION DESIGNS FOR IMPROVING THE OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE OF AT-GRADE SIGNALIZED INTERSECTIONS IN EGYPT

Abstract

This research objective is to explore and present the effectiveness of alternate unconventional intersection designs that may perform better than the conventional signalized intersections. The research focused on two unconventional intersection designs, Median U-turn (MUT) and Superstreet Intersection or RCUT. Whereas, an urban corridor was selected with a series of intersections along the corridor for analysis according to their geometric and traffic conditions. Furthermore, the conventional signalized intersection with protected left-turns treatments carried out into consideration as an innovative alternative of traditional conventional design. The results of selected alternatives have been analyzed and compared with the existing signalized intersections. Traffic models for different models have been built using real traffic volumes. SYNCHRO® 9 was used for optimizing the signal timing and determining the optimal cycle length for different geometric alternatives. SIMTRAFFIC® was used for performing a micro-simulation analysis to analyze the selected alternatives. SIMTRAFFIC® models were calibrated and compared to the existing corridor results using certain measures of effectiveness. The results indicated the effectiveness of the MUT form of intersection as well as the design of the conventional intersection in terms of average total delay, average travel time and average speed.