VISSIM-Based Simulation Approach to Evaluation of Design and Operational Performance of U-turn at Intersection in China

Right turn plus U-turn or U-turn plus right turn (RT+UT or UT+RT) at intersection as an alternative to direct left turn (DLT) has been considered as an important access management. As simulation tool, VISSIM has been widely used in German and other countries. However, VISSIM has been calibrated based on the Germany traffic characteristics, It has limitation to applying to Chinapsilas traffic conditions. The goal of this paper is to explore the applicability of VISSIM in simulating RT+UT in China.Three sites were singled out to do field data collection. The average delay and travel time were used as the measures of effectiveness in model calibration. The model parameters were calibrated based on the field data. Two different U-turn traffic control plans were designed and comparisons between DLT and RT+UT in terms of average delay and maximal queue length were conducted. The simulation results show that with perfect calibration VISSIM can be applied to simulate RT+UT at intersection of China. In addition, it is shown that the proper U-turn design may improve greatly the traffic operational performance.