Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MICROSIMULATION OF “TURBO”
ROUNDABOUTS
Budapest Conference and PTV Vision Workshops 2007
As traffic increased the needs of traffic regulations appeared. At the beginning they
had started with some new geometric elements (islands) and reducing the width of
the squares. The first reconstruction of the square into the central island is noticed
in Maribor in the year 1938. With this reconstruction the width of the square was
reduced and the new possibilities for public marketing with tower in the middle of
island was invented (Figure 2).
In the early 50’s the first traffic rule, concerning the entry of the roundabouts (Figure
3) in Slovenia had been written.
Early circular intersection designs gave priority to entering vehicles facilitating high
speed entry, high crash experience and congestion.
2 Modern approach
The modern roundabout was developed in the United Kingdom to rectify problems
associated with traffic circles. In 1966, the United Kingdom adopted mandatory
“give–way” rule at all circular intersections. The vehicles entering the roundabout
yield to the traffic in the roundabout. In addition, smaller circular intersections were
proposed that required adequate horizontal curvature of vehicle paths to achieve
slower entry and circulating speeds.
In the past four decades, modern roundabouts or circular intersections have been
used mostly in Europe and Commonwealth countries. Despite the tens of
thousands of modern roundabouts in operation around the world, roundabouts have
been slow to gain support in the Slovenia. When Slovenia became an independent
country, in the beginning of 90’s, the need for establishing new legislation for the
field of road construction and road traffic appeared. At the same time the modern
roundabout arrived in Slovenia. The lack of our own guidelines forced the designers
to choose among foreign guidelines. Thus, the choice of a certain guideline
depended on designer’s subjective estimation and on literature and articles, which
was attainable at that time. This caused a partial disunity at designing the first few
roundabouts in Slovenia.
The first huge roundabout (D=200 m) on freeway interchange (Figure 4), was built
in 1992 at the interchange in capital Ljubljana. Also we have “invented” the 3 lanes
roundabout with just one entry and one exit lane per leg (built in Ljubljana). Several
other roundabouts, from that time, were built in just about every municipality in the
new country; need to have at least one.
We were aware at least the capacity problems just after the first applications of
modern roundabouts. Both Universities (University of Ljubljana and Maribor) had
started with practical education on SIDRA software. This early beginnings
influenced also on the fact that, Slovenia with 2 millions inhabitants, is on the 10th
place concerning the number of SIDRA licenses in the world.
At the beginning there was also a problem to take into the account the influence
between intersections.
We have started to improvise with TSIS software (Figure 5) in the middle of 90’s.
The first micro simulations of roundabouts were made by combining the standard
give –way intersections.
We have built plenty of two lanes roundabouts with two entry (in some cases also
with two exit) lanes. From the practice we can consider, that in many cases (no
matter the size and structure of entry flow) the dominant and mostly used lane is
outside entry and circulating lane. The main reason for thus driver behavior is the
size of outside roundabout diameter. If we transfer the diameter into the time that
one driver needs to change the lane into the circulation area, we can conclude, that
our two lane roundabouts are too small. This affects also some accident situation
appearing just in the area of entering/exiting the roundabout from inner circulation
lane. We have established that in some cases, it would be better, if we close that
extra lane, or if we can find some alternative solution. Alternative solution has to be
oriented in the way of reducing conflict points in two lane roundabouts. The
alternative solution can be so called Turbo Roundabout.
At the moment the group of experts is preparing the update of our existing
Roundabouts Technical Specifications. The proposal is, that outside diameter for
two lanes roundabouts should not be smaller than 70 m. This means, that in urban
area, where we have the problem with space limitation, we can not implement the
two lanes roundabouts.
In this article we will concentrate only in possibilities for capacity estimation using
micro simulation. After a quick look on the driveway details of turbo roundabout, we
conclude, that the only software that could simulate this complex design is PTV
VISSIM.
5.2 Calibration
simulation parameters, that can affect the simulation results (network, vehicle,
driver characteristics), but for the calibration process we focused mainly on the
parameters, defined in VISSIM in the so-called Priority Rules. In the parameters
themselves the rules of driving, the minimum critical gap time (drivers' reaction
time) and the minimum headway are determined. VISSIM determines priority to a
certain participant according to the set Priority Rules. Depending on the situation at
the conflict area, an individual decides either to continue with their route or to wait
for more suitable traffic conditions. At the marked spot, they must always examine
both pre-determined conditions (minimum headway and the minimum gap time),
before continuing with their route. The fact, that the inner lane of the roundabout
becomes more attractive for the users, is also considered in the model.
Comparison of delay
80
Roundabout
70 Turbo-roundabout 69,3
60
50
Delay (s)
42,6
40
32,2
30
20
7,5
12,1
10 4
3,3 5,8
0
750 1000 1250 1500
Number of vehicles per hour
90
Roundabout 85,6
80 Turbo-roundabout
70
60
40
30 31
20
10
1,4 6,6
0 0,3 1,4
750 1000 1250 1500
Number of vehicles per hour
The results of traffic stream micro-simulation evidently show that in case of small
traffic load there is no significant difference between a normal and a turbo-
roundabout. Delays and queue lengths are comparable (load examples "750" and
"1000").
In case of larger traffic load (load examples "1250" and "1500"), a significant
difference in favor of the turbo-roundabout is evident.
Delays in the load example "1250" come to 32,2 seconds in the normal roundabout
intersection (LOS=C), and to 12,1 seconds in the turbo-roundabout (LOS=B).
Delays in the load example "1500" come to 69,3 seconds in the normal roundabout
intersection (LOS=E), and to 42,6 seconds in the turbo-roundabout (LOS=D).
The mentioned differences occur mostly due to insufficient usage of the inner
circular lane in a normal roundabout intersection, since in spite of two exit lanes, the
forward driving vehicles (direction N-S) start to change lanes just before the exit,
which causes time loss and delays. This problem does not occur in a turbo-
roundabout, this is why the inner circular lane works with full power.
6 Conclusion
Regarding the fact, that only few turbo-roundabouts have been implemented so far,
and even those only in the Netherlands, little research and experience exist in this
area, which causes a certain reserve to this novelty, since all their characteristics
are still unknown. Due to this, several approaches of establishing these
characteristics, among those the foreseen capacity of turbo-roundabouts are being
used.
The smallest difference in capacities had been detected between the modified Bovy
method and the Akcelik method, and it came up to 30 per cent in case of smaller
traffic load, and only up to 8 per cent in favor of the modified Bovy method in case
of larger traffic load.
The other concrete example was treated by a microscopic simulation model using
PTV VISSIM software. In the first stage, a mathematic model of a normal and a
turbo-roundabout has been designed, and in the second stage, the delays and
queue lengths for four different load examples have been evaluated, and basing on
them a comparison of capacity parameters has been carried out.
The results of the traffic stream micro-simulation evidently show that in case of
smaller traffic load there is no significant difference between a normal and a turbo-
roundabout. Significant difference occurs in case of larger traffic load; in this case
the delays are much shorter with turbo-roundabouts, thus achieving better service
levels.
7 REFERENCES
T. Tollazzi: Roundabout (university book), second edition, Maribor, Technical
Faculties University of Maribior, Slovenia 2005
R. Akcelik: aaSIDRA Traffic model reference guide, Akcelik & Associates Pty Ltd,
Victoria, Australia, 2002