Do Roundabouts Work? An Evaluation for Uniform Approach Demands

With the increased prevalence of roundabouts in the United States, there is a need to evaluate the performance of roundabouts relative to other intersection control strategies. Few studies have compared roundabouts with other intersection control strategies in a systematic fashion. Consequently, this Thesis compares four types of intersection control strategies considering a single lane approach with a 58 km/hr speed limit and equal demand on all approaches. The study demonstrates that vehicle delay is minimized with the use of a roundabout intersection control for all demand levels below 500 veh/hr/approach. Above this point if the left turn percentage exceeds 70% traffic signal control is more efficient. The roundabout alternative also produces the fewest vehicle stops for low demand levels, low left turn demand and high right turn demand, however a TWSC alternative produces the least number of vehicle stops when the through and total demand is high. This study illustrates that fuel consumption and carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions can be improved with roundabout control over other intersection control strategies. The research presented here demonstrates that for low traffic demand levels roundabouts should be part of design alternatives considered for isolated intersection control.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Civil Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Civil Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Jackson, Meredith A.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Rakha, Hesham A.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Katz, Bryan J.
• Ahn, Kyoungho

• Delay
• Emissions modeling
• Roundabouts

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Dc Identifier Other

etd-07252011-120345

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/76831