A Study on the Operational Efficiency of Intersection Shared Lanes

Abstract

This study focuses on operational analysis of 2 types of intersection shared lanes. First, the analysis showed that a through & right-turn shared lane is always less used than the adjacent through-only lanes and as a result, operational efficiency deteriorates. To improve the efficiency fine-tuning in signal timing optimization using lane-by-lane traffic volume data is required. Further improvement can be achieved by guiding drivers to equally use the shared lane. For left-turn & U-turn shared lanes, it was found that saturation flow rate is affected by interference between U-turn and conflicting right-turn movements. However, since such interference does not occur in every cycle, a statistical model must be established to develop realistic adjustment factor for saturation flow rate of the shared lane.