Traffic Capacity And Delay Analysis Of Signal Intersections Based On Shared-use Lanes

As one of the most important public transport facilities,intersections are under much more pressure with the growing number of vehicles in the transportation network.Traffic congestion occurs frequently especially in rush hours.Thus the shared-use lane of signal intersection was studied in order to accurately estimate the traffic efficiency of signal intersection and reduce the traffic delay.Short lanes often exist on the approach due to widening or other traffic restrictions.The traffic flow would be blocked on the shared-use lane because of the limited length of short lanes.Thus the efficiency of shared-use lanes is limited.A stochastic capacity model of shared-use lane was developed in consideration of the blockage caused by short lanes.It was then compared with VIS SIM traffic simulation statistics and previous method.Besides,the influence of traffic parameters such as the length of the short lane,arrival ratio,signal cycle and green-time-rate are discussed.The results show that the capacity of shared-use lane can be objectively estimated using proposed algorithm.It also suggests that proper length of short lanes should be taken according to the actual traffic conditions at intersections.At the same time,short signal cycle or long phase green time may be adopted to reduce the loss of traffic capacity.An optimization model about the time-shared lane at intersections was proposed to improve the traffic capacity and solve the mutual interference between different flows in the shared-use lane.It was expounded from three perspectives:the definition,working process and signal controlling.A non-linear optimization algorithm was proposed to minimize vehicle delay.Based on actual data of typical signalized intersections in Hefei,simulations about the effect of time-shared lane were conducted by VISSIM software.The results show that the time-shared lane at intersections can shorten the queue length of vehicles and reduce the traffic delay at intersections.The proposed method may be used to support the urban traffic control and relieve the traffic pressure.