Yielding behavior and traffic conflicts at cyclist crossing facilities on channelized right-turn lanes

Abstract

Channelized right-turn lanes (CRTLs) improve traffic flow efficiency, enabling right-turning drivers to bypass traffic lights at signalised intersections (for right-hand drive countries). Many CRTLs provide crossing facilities for pedestrians and cyclists. Previous studies examining the safety performance of CRTLs indicate that they increase overall safety levels but hint that safety issues regarding vulnerable road users exist. This study investigated these issues through site-based observations of yielding behavior and evaluated the effect of the priority rule on cyclists' safety in two CRTL designs. Four locations in Belgium were selected for video observations: two where the priority rule favoured cyclists and two where motorists had priority.With regard to yielding, four types of crossing behavior were identified and defined. Independent of the priority rule, cyclists crossed the conflict zone first in most interactions without taking the initiative to cross first. Underlying reasons for motorists willingly giving away their right-of-way could not be determined, but possible courtesy or fear of inflicting injuries at vulnerable road users might be at hand. A safety evaluation was performed using two traffic conflict indicators (TTC min and the TA value). High correlations between the two indicators were found (r 2 > 0.83), but no conclusions about the safest priority rule for cyclists could be drawn. The results hinted, however, that locations with motorist priority and cyslists crossings from right to left (from the driver's point of view) yields the highest proportion of safety critical events.

Using single and multiple unmanned aerial vehicles for microscopic driver behaviour data collection at freeway interchange ramps

“…The final video processing step is to detect and track individual vehicles in the UAV video sequences. In this study, a semi-automated video analysis software called T-Analyst, which has been used in several traffic-related studies including (Kazemzadeh et al 2020;Madsen and Lahrmann 2017;van Haperen et al 2018), was used due to its efficiency, accuracy, and simplicity.…”

Conditions for Setting Exclusive Pedestrian Phases at Two-Phase Signalized Intersections considering Pedestrian-Vehicle Interaction

“…ere are different types of pedestrian-vehicle interaction situations in each pedestrianvehicle interaction zone. According to the previous research [1,23] and the modeling requirements of this paper, this study divides pedestrian-vehicle interaction situations into following categories: (1) vehicle yield to pedestrian and simultaneously pedestrian yield to vehicle, (2) vehicle yield to pedestrian, (3) pedestrian yield to vehicle, and (4) vehicle does not yield to pedestrian and simultaneously pedestrian does not yield to vehicle. To facilitate the model presentation, the key notations used here after are summarized in Table 1.…”

Optimizing Right-Turn Signals to Benefit Pedestrian–Vehicle Interactions

“…Different pedestrian-vehicle interaction mechanisms will affect the control effect of the right-turn signal (13). Scholars in China and other countries have found that traffic environment factors, pedestrian factors, and vehicle factors affect the pedestrian-vehicle interaction mechanism of signalized intersections (1,(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21). The pedestrian-vehicle interaction mechanism directly affects the traffic model of signalized intersections (e.g., capacity estimation model, delay estimation model), and then changes the optimization conditions of the right-turn signal (9,18,22,23).…”

“…There are different types of pedestrian-vehicle interaction situations in each pedestrian-vehicle interaction zone. According to previous research and the modeling requirements of this paper, it is necessary to divide the pedestrian-vehicle interaction situations into following categories: (1) vehicle yields to a pedestrian and simultaneously the pedestrian yields to the vehicle, (2) the vehicle yields to a pedestrian, (3) the pedestrian yields to a vehicle, (4) the vehicle does not yield to a pedestrian and simultaneously the pedestrian does not yield to a vehicle (14,16).…”