A Short Student Paper

© STOCKBYTE

Hengsong Wang
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
bruce0815@foxmail.com
Bing Long
Associate Professor in School of Automation, UESTC
Shulin Tian
Professor of School of Automation Engineering, UESTC

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MITS.2010.937291

IEEE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS MAGAZINE • 18 • SPRING 2010 1939-1390/10/$26.00©2010IEEE

 Abstract—Better design of large traffic circles is very impor-
tant for the growing need of high quality travel. This paper
presents a novel method for channeling the large traffic cir-
cles based on the spiral-shaped driveways, which is inspired
by the Eight Diagram of Taoism. This channelization elimi-
nates many potential conflict points as well as improves the
traffic flux. Better utilization of the center island becomes
possible. After applying the error-correcting mechanism,
this design becomes more considerate and more branches
can be added.

Keywords—traffic circle, spiral-shaped driveway, error-cor-

recting mechanism.

I. Introduction II. Spiral-Shaped Driveway

T
raffic jam and accidents, which reduce traffic flux
greatly, have become the bottleneck for the sustain-
able development of many cities, especially those
happening at large traffic circles with multi-lanes
(such as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and the Victory Mon-
ument in Bangkok).
A number of techniques have been proposed to improve
the situation: stop line and traffic light are used to control the
flowing-in, flowing-around and flowing-out of traffic circles;
advanced control algorithms of traffic lights are developed
to increase the flux; length of weaving section and width
of the lanes are modified to get optimized results; conflict
points are transferred in geography; interchange bridges or
subways are built to separate different means of transporta-
tion [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Unfortunately, many disadvantages are
along with these techniques: traffic lights make the vehicles
wait for a long time, thus wasting resources (oil and the time
of the drivers) and increasing the corresponding pollution;
simulations for modifying the traditional intersection are
complex and cannot satisfy the growing need for high effi-
ciency; Building Interchange Bridge or subway requires high
cost and affect the beauty of the city; existing channelization
of intersection has limited application field while the cost for
updating is huge and the effect is not so satisfying, leaving
problem not solved fundamentally. All in all, we still face
many problems, for the traffic flux and the safety level is still
lower than what we have expected.
It seems that channelization can solve the problem ef-
fectively. But at the moment, it is used only for intersection
with small flux. As for large scale ones with a large number
of branches, situation is much worse and better design is ur-
gently needed.
Therefore, we must reform the design of traffic circles and
provide a novel method of channelization with the consider-
ation of flexibility, low-cost, high-flux, safety-critical.
The basic problem of current traffic circle is that we cannot
provide each direction with a single lane, thus bringing about
intersections among different directions. If we can provide
each target branches with a unique lane, the problem may be
solves potentially. We will tackle the problem from this point.
Inspired by the Eight Diagram of Taoism which links the
center with the fringe by a spiral-shaped line (see Figure 1),
we can design spiral-shaped driveways to connect each en-
trance with target branches. The only condition is that differ-
ent driveways of certain direction don’t intersect.
This system consists of these following elements (see
Figure 2):
■ 1, the center island; 101, the ring-shaped parking lot; 102,
the center square;
■ 2, the spiral-shaped driveway district; 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 , four
spiral-shaped driveways lead to four target branches sepa-
rately;
■ 1D/2D/3D/4D, four district corresponding to the main
branches; 301/302/303/304, four main branches connected
to the spiral-shaped driveways; 3011/3021/3031/3041, the
entrance lanes of the branches; 3012, 3022/3032/3042, the
FIG 1 Eight diagram of Taoism.

IEEE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS MAGAZINE • 19 • SPRING 2010

 ■ P1/P2/P3/P4, the parking buffers
3,021 3,022 for the mechanism of error-correcting
302 and for the expansion to circles with
702 more branches.
2D.
702 Now take the main branch 301 as
602 341
101 P2 an example to explain the operation
2 mechanism of this novel design of
102 2 4 traffic circle. Before entering the spi-
P3 3 ral-shaped driveway 2, a vehicle must
3 601 701
4 2
303 4 3 5 drive to certain lane that is connect-
301
3 1D ed with the target branch (And this
3,032 1 2 3,011 will be indicated on the sign band 5
4 3
4 in detail):
3,031 2 3,012
1 3 2 P1 ■ Drive to 4 if he wants to turn left and
4 exit from 3042 in district 4;
3D 901 ■ Drive to 3 if he wants to go straight
1 2 1
4 2 801
603 forward and exit from 3032 in district 3;
1 1
703 4 ■ Drive to 2 if he wants to turn right
and exit from 3022 in district 2.
3 2 1
Afterward, every vehicle can enter
604
704
the spiral-shaped driveway through
P4 4D
the line of dashes 4, which is the in-
304 tersection of spiral driveway and the
3,041
3,042 main branches. A driver, however,
must drive along spiral-shaped drive-
FIG 2 Novel design of traffic circle. way that has the same code number
with the lane of entrance branch, that
exit lanes of the branches; 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 , four separate lanes is: drive to ② from 2 ; drive to ③ from 3 ; drive to ④ from 4 .
leading to the target branches; As a single spiral-shaped driveways lead to a single
■ 4, the entrances of vehicles from the main branches to the branch, a vehicle can get to the target branch along the
spiral-shaped driveways; driveway without conflict. And that’s pretty safe!
■ 5, the sign bands providing instructions for the drivers; In case of jams and accidents, traffic lights, which are
■ 601/602/603/604, the traffic lights controlling the en- to eliminate conflicts and increase the traffic flux, are
trance from main branches to the circle; 701/702/703/704, provided in rush hours. Traffic lights 601/602/603/604
the stop lines corresponding to the traffic lights; and stop lines 701/702/703/704 are to control the entering
■ 801/802/803/804, the traffic lights controlling the circling of of vehicles from the entrance lanes to the circle. These
vehicles on the spiral-shaped driveways; 901/902/903/904, lights must be in the same phase. 801/802/803/804 and
the stop lines corresponding to the traffic lights; 901/902/903/904 are used to control the circling of vehi-
cles on the spiral-shaped driveways. These lights must be
in opposite phase with 601/602/603/604. The control al-
1,012 gorithms, however, need to be studied further to gain the
C3 C1
optimized effect.
During off-peak hours, traffic lights should be off entirely
and the vehicles can enter the circle without the control of
1,011
the lights according to the Gap Acceptance Theory [7, 8].
C2
III. Center Island
C4 As all of the spiral-shaped driveways start from the center of
101 the traffic circle, we can make a round-shaped parking lot 101
1,013 around the center 102 (see Fig. 3). All the vehicles can enter
102 or exit the parking lot through 1011/1012/1013/1014 and head
1,014 to the Arc de Triomphe. For example, C1 can enter the park-
ing lot through 1012 and C2 can exit the parking lot through
FIG 3 Center island. 1013 while not affecting the circling car C3 or the parking

IEEE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS MAGAZINE • 20 • SPRING 2010

C4. If there is no Arc de Triomphe, we
can also build some other commercial
facilities or develop tourism. And this is Waiting
2D
convenient for the traveler or the driv- P2 Again
ers while the business and the tourism 3 4 1
get a chance to become prosperous. Correct
Lane Wrong
2 Lane
IV. Error-Correcting 3
3
After channelization, a driver must 2
4 3
drive along on the right lane through- 4
out the whole process. But anyone may 1D
3
1 2
make a mistake so error-correcting 3
mechanism is necessary. In Figures 4 4
2 and 4, parking buffers P1/P2/P3/P4 2
1 3 2
are designed which make it possible 4
to correct the error. This measure is 3D
2 1
also the base of adding more branches 4 1
2
and will be explained further in the 1
1
next section. 4
For example, a vehicle from branch
3011 wants to turn left and get to 3042. 3 2 1
Therefore, the driver should drive to
④, then along spiral-shaped driveway 4D
④. But by mistake he drives to ② which
are indicated by red line and arrow in
Figure 4. How to correct? He can drive FIG 4 Error-correcting mechanism.
to P2 first and waits for the green light
of 602 if it is in rush hours. In the next
turn, the driver reenter spiral-shaped
driveway ④ from P2 (indicated by the 602 302
red line in picture). Now he can get to P2
the original target branch in spite of 2D 1R 2 D
1D2R
the mistake.
3 4 1
2D2R 1 D1R
V. Adding More Branches
This design is fit for large number branch- 2
3
es owing to the spiral-shaped driveway 3 2
and the error-correcting mechanism. 4 4 3
303 301
Take the Arc de Triomphe in Paris which 3 1D
calls for better control of the traffic ur- 1 2
3
gently as an example. 4 4
First, 4 main branches are chosen ac- 2 3
1 2
cording to the statistical flux and 4 districts 4
are divided in the principle of proximity. 3D
1
Every district contains a bidirectional 4 1 2 304
main branch (1D/2D/3D/4D), an enter- 1
1 4 D 2R
only branch (1D1R/2D2R/3D1R/4D1R) 4
3 D 1R
and an exit-only branch (1D2R/2D1R/
3D2R/4D2R). 3 2 1 4D 1 R
The main branches are operated in 4D
3 D2 R
the same mechanism with those de-
scribed in section II. For the exit-only 304
branches, operation is same with the
exit-only lane of the main branches. For FIG 5 Expansion of the traffic circle.

IEEE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS MAGAZINE • 21 • SPRING 2010

 2D
2D
341

2
F1 3
F3 3 2 F1
4 3
1D 4
3 1D
1 2
4 3
4
2
1 3 2
3D 4
3D 2 1
4 1 2
1 1
F2 4

4D 3 21
Potential Conflict Point
P 4D
Potential Conflict Point
(a) (b)

FIG 6 (a) and (b) show conflicts analysis.

example, if a car from 301 wants to get to 4D2R, it can first
drive to ④, then exit at 4D2R.
For the enter-only branches, vehicles can make use of the
parking buffers. Take a vehicle from 1D1R as an example
and suppose that this vehicle want to drive to 3012. First it
can drive to spiral-shaped driveway ② and stop at the park-
ing buffer P2. When allowed, this vehicle must drive to spi-
ral-shaped driveway ① and get out of the circle at lane 3012.
(The whole process is indicated in Figure 5.)
VI. Conflicts Analysis
In Figure 6-a, the driveways have not been channelized. Ve-
hicles entering the circle will conflict with the circling ones
at F1; circling vehicles will bring about conflict points F2 if
vehicles change to another lane; vehicles coming out of the
circle will conflict with the circling ones at F3. Thus, con-
flict points which are the source of potential safety hazard
almost scatter about the whole traffic circle and reduce the
traffic flux greatly, especially for ones with a large number
of branches.
However, conflict points F2 and F3 are eliminated after
channelization with the application of spiral-shaped drive-
ways and the mechanism for error- correcting (shown in
Figure 6-b). Therefore traffic flux and the safety level are
improved. During rush hours, traffic lights of the branch
entrances and the Spiral-shaped driveways, which are op-
posite in phase, can be used to eliminate the conflict points
F1. This measure can prevent the traffic jam effectively. Al-
gorithms to control the traffic lights, however, need to be
studied further.
VII. Conclusions
This paper presents a novel design of traffic circles based
on the spiral-shaped driveways and the error-correcting
mechanism. After just simple statement and analysis, it
is apparent that it can reduce the conflict rate and im-
prove the traffic flux greately. Some of the advantages
are listed:
■ The design of the Spiral-shaped driveway is simple and
convenience to be applied and just need segregate in-
stallation between different driveway and correspond-
ing traffic signs. Therefore it produces less effect of the
current road and the neighborhood and is low-cost and
low-waste.
■ Especially for traffic circles with a large number of branch-
es, this design can be carried out easily and effectively.
■ Spiral-shaped driveways start from the center, and it is
convenient for the development of tourism and business
while maintaining sustainable.
Despite the advantages, further studies should be car-
ried out:
■ The proposed spiral-shaped circle with error-correct-
ing mechanism should be modeled and the correspond-
ing parameters should be determined reasonably or
statistically.
■ The conflict rate and the traffic flux need to be determined
accurately and more comparisons with the traditional traf-
fic circles should be made.
Whatever, this design inspires us to rethink the art of design
which is somewhat intuitive to solve this complex problem. May
it start a new way or style for our ITSM!

IEEE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS MAGAZINE • 22 • SPRING 2010

About the Authors From Imagination to Market
Hengsong Wang was born in n
Kaifeng, China, in August 1990..
He is currently an undergradu--
ate at University of Electronicc
Science and Technology of Chi--
na (UESTC), Chengdu, China..
He is interested in math and art,,
concerning about the affairs off
our planet. Imagination is his favorite.

Bing Long was born in Chengdu,,

China, in July 1974. He is current--
ly an Associate Professor with Uni--
versity of Electronic Science andd
Technology of China (UESTC),,
Chengdu, China. His research in--
terests include Application Math--
ematic and testability analysis.
“IEEE journals are getting the newest,
Shulin Tian received his B.S.. most revolutionary ideas.”
and M.S degrees in automation n —Dr. Donald R. Scifres, holder of more than 140 patents,
engineering science from the e founder of SDL Ventures, LLC

University of Electronic Science e

and Technology of China in 1989 9
and 1991 respectively. Currently,,
he is a professor of School of Au--
tomation Engineering, UESTC..
Majored in Measuring and Testing Technology & Access the cutting-edge research that drives innovation
Instruments, he has conducted a number of proj--
ects in high speed, high precision data acquisition n IEEE Xplore® Digital Library
and processing, high speed waveform generation,,
network/communication testing, testing bus tech-- Top cited journals in the field
nology and testing system integration. Conference proceedings that define the future
of innovation
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Free Trial!
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