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Estimating critical gap of roundabouts by different methods

Conference Paper · November 2010

DOI: 10.1049/cp.2010.1107 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 Estimating Critical Gap of Roundabouts by
Different Methods
Rui-jun Guo
1 School of Transportation Engineering, Dalian Jiaotong University, Dalian, China 116028; email: rjguo@163.com
2 School of Traffic and Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China 100044
abstract
Critical gap is an important parameter which affects the
capacity and delay of unsignalized intersections. There
are different critical gap values for drivers in different
geometry parameters and traffic conditions. Critical gap
can be generally described by Erlang distribution,
lognormal distribution, etc. Various methods
calculating critical gap at roundabouts have been
presented. Many studies on gap acceptance at
roundabouts have been carried out in America and
Europe, whereas the same works have rarely been done
in China. This paper gives an overview of many
methods calculating critical gap. On the base of video
survey of Shuma Square roundabout in Dalian, we
acquired a large number of rejected gaps and accepted
gaps in rush hour. The critical gaps can be calculated by
use of different methods including Ashworth’s method,
Raff’s method and the maximum likelihood method. As
a result, the maximum likelihood procedure and the
revised Raff’s method can be recommended for
practical application, and Ashworth’s method will
result in larger result because it only uses values of
accepted gap.
1 Instruction
Critical gap is an important parameter which influences
the capacity and delay of roundabouts, and it is usually
defined as a threshold whether drivers in entry vehicles
run into the roundabout or not. If the headway between
the continued two vehicles of circulating stream is
larger than the critical gap, it is named as accepted gap
since entry vehicles can accept the headway and run
into roundabout. On the other hand, it is named as
and Hewitt’s method calculate well and truly. Abishai
Polus et al. (2003) considered critical gap decreased
1,2
rejected gap when the headway is smaller than critical
gap. The critical gap usually follows a certain
distribution but a definite value because of difference of
driver operation, geometry of roundabouts and traffic
operation character.
Many different methods estimating critical gap at
unsignalized intersections have been published in the
international literature. Raff’s method (1950) involves
the distributions of accepted gap and rejected gap. The
sum of cumulative probabilities of accepted gap and
rejected gap is 1 when the headway is equal to critical
gap. Critical gap can be obtained by drawing graph of
cumulative probability. This method has been applied in
many countries, whereas it lacks strict theoretic basis.
Robert Ashworth’s method (1969) is related to the
distribution of accepted gap under the circumstances of
different flow rates of circulating stream provided that
the circulating headway follows exponential
distribution, critical gap and accepted gap follows
normal distribution. Miller (1974) deduced the formula
of critical gap provided that it follows Gamma
distribution based on Ashworth’s method.
M.M.Hammed et al. (1997) consider the distribution of
critical gap is related to the life background of driver,
waiting time and trip purpose etc. and the mean critical
gap is related to conflicting flow, the lane number of
entry, the proportion of left-turn lane and velocity of
circulating stream. They built multiple regress model of
critical gap. The maximum likelihood method (Tian et
al. 1999) supposed the accepted gap, maximum rejected
gap and critical gap follow normal distribution, and the
mean and variance of critical gap can be calculated
based on probability theory. Brilon et al. (1999) had a
comprehensive analysis on different methods and made
a conclusion that maximum likelihood method (MLM)
with the increase of waiting time of entry drivers and
built an exponential model.
Based on the video survey of Shuma Square
roundabout in Dalian, China, we calculated and
compared critical gap by use of varied methods based
on the accepted gaps and rejected gaps of a certain
waving section during the rush time.
2 Calculation method
The critical gap is a hypothetical value which can’t be
measured based on the field samples, it can be only
estimated by measuring the accepted gap and rejected
gap. There are many methods to estimate critical gap
such as regression method, MLM, Raff’s, Harder’s,
Ashworth’s, Siegloch’s and so on.
2.1 Raff’s method
Raff consider the number of rejected gap larger than
critical gap is equal to the number of accepted gap
smaller than critical gap. He created the formula as
follow.
2
where  c is the variance of critical gap（s2）。 The
computer iteration can be applied to calculate critical
gap using equation (3). We calculate critical gap by use
of equation (2) in this paper.
2.3 Maximum likelihood method
Troutbeck and Brilon (1999) considered the MLM as
the most reliable of varied methods. Troutbeck
assumed critical gap followed lognormal distribution,
while Brilon assumed critical gap followed ultra-Erlang
distribution. The paper uses the former.
MLM uses two terms of gaps including accepted gaps
and maximum rejected gaps. The maximum rejected
gap is the maximum value of all rejected gaps during a
driver waits to running into the roundabout. The mean
and variance of critical gap can be calculated used of
the maximum likelihood function of probability theory.
We assume critical gap follows lognormal distribution,
that is to say, t ~ LN(u, ) . The maximum
2
c

likelihood function is as follow.

n
（4）
[F (ai )  F (ri )]
i 1

1 Fr (t)  Fa (t) (1) where ai is the logarithm of the gap accepted by the
i th driver； ri is the logarithm of the maximum gap
where Fa (t) is the cumulative proportion of
rejected by the i th driver, r ＝ 0 if no gap was
i
accepted gap; Fr (t) is the cumulative proportion of
rejected ； f (t ) , F(t) are the probability density
rejected gap; t is the headway of two continued
function and cumulative distribution function for the
vehicles of circulating stream.
normal distribution respectively.
The critical gap is the cross point of two cumulative
The logarithm of function (4) is as follow.
proportion curves of accepted gap and rejected gap.
n

2.2 Ashworth’s method L  ln[ F (ai )  F (ri )] （5）

i 1
Ashworth gave the calculative formula as follow.
The likelihood estimators  and 
2
are the solutions
t t V  2 (2)
c a p a
that the partial derivative of equation (5) is equal to
where tc is critical gap（s）； Vp is the flow rate of zero. They can be simplified as follow.
n
f (ri )  f (ai )

circulating stream（pcu/s）；
ta
is the mean of accepted   0 （a）
 i1 F (ai )  F (ri )
2
gaps（s）；  a is the variance of accepted gaps（s2）。  n (r  ˆ ) f (r )  (a  ˆ ) f (a )
  i i i i

Similarly, Miller gave the calculative equation (3) 


i1 F (a )  F (r )  0（b）

 i i

based on the hypothesis that critical gap follows gamma

（6）
distribution.

t t V 2 Where f (ri ) ， f (ai ) ， F (ri ) ， F (ai ) are all the
c a p c function of  and  2 .  and  2 can be calculated
 t （3）
c
 
 c a by programming computer (Troutbeck, 1992). So the
 ta
mean and variance of critical gap can be derived by

conflicting stream considering the inner two lanes of the

equation (7). waving section as a lane. After video survey of continued
t  eu0.5 2 40 minutes from 16 ：30-17：10 on April 28, 2009, the
c maximum rejected gaps and accepted gaps including 100
2 terms of data which are revealed in the table 1. The flow
2 2
rate of circulating stream is 1842pcu/h，or 0.512 pcu/s.
s  tc (e 1)

3 Measure of accepted gap and maximum

rejected gap
Shuma Square roundabout is an unsignalized
intersection located the cross of Shuma Road, Youjia
Road and Wuyi Road. The diameter is 62 meters and
there are two lanes in entry. The survey section is the
waving section which length is 45 meters between east
Wuyi Road and Youjia Road as figure 1. The section is
constituted by 3 lanes in which the outer lane is right-
turn lane and the other two lanes are the waving section
where confluence operations occur.

Figure 1. Survey section in Shuma Square roundabout

The accepted gaps and rejected gaps are measured with

the headways between the continued vehicles in
 Table 1. The measure of accepted gap and the
maximum rejected gap（s）
ta tr ta tr ta tr ta tr ta tr ta tr
5.26 1.68 3.29 0 3.86 0 4.11 0 2.31 0 1.8 1.43

3.46 1.16 3.35 1.93 2.97 0 5.21 3.01 5.11 2.45 3.22 0

4.76 2.08 4.22 2.44 3.49 0 3.14 0 3.69 0 5.21 2.18

1.97 0 4.06 2.44 2.48 0 3.54 0 4.99 3 2.46 1.68

5.75 0 4.01 1.93 3.78 1.92 2.01 0 5.54 2.36 3.67 1.93

2.72 0 3.32 1.68 2.89 2.61 6 0 4.21 0 2.59 0

5.05 0 2.89 0 2.59 2.41 4.51 0 3.32 0 2.94 0

4.26 1.55 3.13 0 3.06 1.4 3.33 0 3.68 2 6.82 4.06

3.22 0 4.66 3.35 3.97 2.77 3.56 2.24 3.96 2.1 7.24 2.18

2.18 1.16 4.26 2.94 4.22 2.18 4.25 2.14 5.25 1.89 3.49 2.32

3.49 0 4.22 3.6 3.6 2.69 5.21 2.54 5.47 2.58 4.1 2.72

3.74 2.72 5.26 2.34 3.13 1.39 3.45 0 4.12 2.47 5.16 2.56

2.72 0 2.86 0 4.53 1.93 2.88 2.01 2.36 0 2.32 2.08

1.93 0 3.78 0 5.05 2.16 3.23 0 2.98 0 3.42 2.03

2.18 1.42 2.56 0 4.42 0 4.1 0 3.56 0 4.21 1.56

4.12 0 3.55 2.11 3.03 1.48 2.64 0 4.25 2.45 5.21 2.22

4 2.63 2.88 0 5.5 3.12 4.26 2.41

4 Calculation and compare of critical gap

4.1 Raff’s method

Raff’s method does not consider the maximum

rejected gap equal to zero, so 58 rejected gaps can be
derived from table 1. The accumulative proportions
of accepted gap and rejected gap are showed as table
2.

Table 2. Accumulative probability of accepted gap and

rejected gap
 Accumulative Accumulative
Range of Acceptance Rejected Acceptance Rejected
probability of probability of
gap（s） number number probability probability
acceptance rejection

0-1.1 0 0 0 0 0 1

1.1-1.4 0 3 0 0 0.05 1

1.4-1.7 0 9 0 0 0.16 0.95

1.7-2.0 3 7 0.03 0.03 0.12 0.79

2.0-2.3 3 13 0.03 0.06 0.22 0.67

2.3-2.6 8 13 0.08 0.14 0.22 0.45

2.6-2.9 8 6 0.08 0.22 0.10 0.22

2.9-3.2 8 4 0.08 0.3 0.07 0.12

3.2-3.5 14 1 0.14 0.44 0.02 0.05

3.5-3.8 11 1 0.11 0.55 0.02 0.03

3.8-4.1 8 1 0.08 0.63 0.02 0.02 gaps from table 1 in six ranges.
4.1-4.4 13 0 0.13 0.76 0 0

4.4-4.7 4 0 0.04 0.8 0 0

4.7-5.0 2 0 0.02 0.82 0 0

5.0-5.3 11 0 0.11 0.93 0 0

5.3-5.6 3 0 0.03 0.96 0 0

5.6-5.9 1 0 0.01 0.97 0 0

5.9-6.2 1 0 0.01 0.98 0 0

6.2-6.5 0 0 0 0.98 0 0

6.5-6.8 0 0 0 0.98 0 0

6.8-7.1 1 0 0.01 0.99 0 0 Figure 3. Distribution of accepted gap in Shuma Square

7.1-7.4 1 0 0.01 1 0 0 roundabout
Total 100 58 1 1

2
Table 3.  test on normal distribution of accepted
The accumulative probability of accepted gap is the
probability which the accepted gap is smaller than the gap
upper limit of range, for example, the accumulative
Range(s) vi pi npi vi2 / npi
probability of accepted gap, 0.14 at the range of 2.3-
2.6s refers to the probability which accepted gap is 0-2 3 0.048 4.824 1.866

smaller than 2.6s. On the contrast, the accumulative 2-3 22 0.182 18.211 26.577

probability of rejected gap is the probability larger than 3-4 34 0.344 34.374 33.630

the lower limit of range. 4-5 23 0.293 29.269 18.074

The curves of accumulative probability can be drawn 5-6 16 0.112 11.234 22.789

as figure 2. The critical gap is 2.91s which is the cross >6 2 0.021 2.089 1.915

of acceptance curve and rejected curve. Total 100 1 100 104.851

Figure 2. Critical gap of Raff’s method

We call the method which uses all rejected gaps

including zero as revised Raff’s method. It considers
the vehicles immediately running into the roundabout
without waiting. The critical gap is 2.78s by use of
revised Raff’s method.
4.2 Ashworth’s method The progress of  2 test is as table 3. where v
i

Test of hypothesis to normal distribution of accepted is the frequency of accepted gaps in each range; n is
gap. The figure 3 shows the frequencies of accepted the total frequency and n 100 , pi is the
2
probability of distribution in the range and
2
 104.851-100  4.851. The equation can be
2
derived in search of  distribution table as the

significance level is 0.05 and free degree is 3 as follow.

 2
0 .953  7.815  4.851
So the hypothesis can be accepted and the accepted gap
  0.9485 follows normal distribution.

4.2.1 Test of hypothesis to exponential distribution

of circulating stream.

The progress of test is as table 4.

circulating stream vehicles follows exponential
distribution and the accepted gap follows normal
 2 test on exponential
Table 4. distribution distribution. The critical gap is 3.20s by use of
equation (2) of Ashworth’s method.
n 4.3 Maximum likelihood method
No. Range(s) v Frequence pi np v2 p
i i i
We calculate the probability density and accumulative
i
probability by use of the NORMDIST function in
1 0-1.5 0.143 15 0.083 8.730 25.773 Microsoft Office Excel2007. Firstly the mean, 1.29s
2 1.5-2 0.143 15 0.165 17.283 13.019 and the standard variance, 0.29s of the logarithm of
3 2.5-3 0.248 26 0.246 25.815 26.187 accepted gaps are considered as the preliminary values
4 3-3.5 0.086 9 0.091 9.546 8.485 of  and  . Then the values of  and  are changed
5 3.5-4 0.048 5 0.075 7.832 3.192 step by step in order that left functions of (a) and (b) in
6 4-4.5 0.038 4 0.061 6.426 2.490 equation (6) tend to zero. Finally the values of  and
7 4.5-5 0.057 6 0.050 5.272 6.828
 are confirmed if the error is in the range of a little
8 5-6 0.057 6 0.075 7.875 4.571
value. The progress of calculation is as table 5.
9 6-7.5 0.057 6 0.069 7.262 4.958

10 7.5-9 0.057 6 0.038 4.011 8.976

11 >9 0.067 7 0.047 4.948 9.902

合计 1 105 1 105.000 114.381

2
 114.381-105  9.381
 0
2
.95(8) 15.507  9.381.

So the hypothesis can be accepted and the headway

follows exponential distribution.
4.2.2 Calculation of critical gap
We can calculate the mean accepted gap, 3.8s and the
variance, 1.17 s2 by use of the data in table 1. Based
on the above conclusion that the headway of
 Critical
Table 5. The iteration of MLM 2.65 3.2 2.91 2.78
  Left (a) Left (b) gap
1.29 0.29 -270.695 40.143
1 0.29 -45.832 -16.940
The order of different method’s results is Ashworth’s,
1 0.23 -52.610 -1.100
Raff’s, revised Raff’s and MLM. Ashworth’s result is
0.93 0.23 17.838 -0.056
the largest and other methods have a little difference
0.93 0.28 5.892 -13.631
because Ashworth’s method only uses accepted gap,
0.95 0.23 -2.061 -1.097
but other methods use rejected gap too. The revised
0.945 0.246 -0.020 -5.621
Raff’s method considers the rejected gap equal to zero,
0.949 0.227 -0.552 -0.114
so its result is less than Raff’s result and close to
0.9485 0.2268 -0.008 -0.030
MLM’s result. The revised Raff’s method and MLM is
more reliable than others because both accepted gap
When and   0.2268 ，left and rejected gap influence critical gap in the field
(a) traffic conditions.
and (b) tend to zero. The mean and variance of critical MLM is a pretty method Calculating critical gap of
gap is respectively 2.65s and 0.37s2 using equation confluence operation. It uses the accepted gap and
(7). rejected gap independently in spite of condition of
4.4 Compare of varied method entry stream and survey time. Ashworth’s method is
We can acquire the table 6 from the above calculations. simple to calculate critical gap but it should be assured
that the headway of circulating stream follows
Table 6. Critical gap of varied methods(s) exponential distribution and the accepted gap follows
Revised normal distribution. The distribution condition is
method MLM Ashworth’s Raff’s difficult to satisfy sometimes because the vehicle
Raff’s streams are influenced by the upriver signalized
intersections or the
[1] Abishai Polus, M.ASCE, Sitvanit Shmueli
flow rate is small in peacetime. So Ashworth’s method Lazar, Moshe Livneh, M.ASCE. (2003). “Critical Gap
demands strict adaptable condition in fact. Raff’s and as a Function of Waiting Time in Determining
revised Raff’s method are simple, intuitive and can get Roundabout Capacity”. Journal of Transportation
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MLM under the condition of a large size sample to [2] M.M.Hammed, S.M.Easa, Member, ASCE,
find the final result quickly. R.R.Batayneh. (1997). “Disaggregate gap-acceptance
Conclusion model for unsignalized T-intersections.” Journal of
It is assumed that critical gap follows a certain
distribution. The result values are usually different
using different methods for the same headway data. It
reveals revised Raff’s method and MLM are reliable.
Ashworth’s result is larger than others as it only uses
accepted gap. With the change of society and city
traffic, critical gap, in addition to the other parameters
such as follow-up headway and minimum headway,
changes too. The further researches are needed to
capture the change regular and build dynamic model
of critical gap based on a large number of real-time
samples so as to make use of roundabouts effectively.
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