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Analysis of capacity and level of service at uncontrolled intersections under

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Article  in  International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology · January 2017

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International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET)
Volume 8, Issue 8, August 2017, pp. 181–190, Article ID: IJCIET_08_08_020
Available online at http://http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJCIET?Volume=8&Issue=8
ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316

© IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed

ANALYSIS OF CAPACITY AND LEVEL OF

SERVICE AT UNCONTROLLED
INTERSECTIONS UNDER HETEROGENEOUS
TRAFFIC CONDITIONS
B. Someswara Rao
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering,
GMR Institute of Technology, Rajam, Andhra Pradesh, India

T. Rambabu
P.G Student, Department of Civil Engineering,
GMR Institute of Technology, Rajam, Andhra Pradesh, India

Dr. G. Venkata Rao

Professor, Department of Civil Engineering,
GMR Institute of Technology, Rajam, Andhra Pradesh, India

ABSTRACT
At Uncontrolled intersections, the interaction of vehicles are very complex .In
general every vehicle is moving without following any rules at this type of
intersections. so it is very difficult to find critical gap and capacity at this type of
intersections because gaps are vary vehicle to vehicle. There are several attempts
made to develop different approaches for the analysis of uncontrolled intersections
under mixed traffic conditions. In this paper the critical gap is estimated with various
critical gap methods like Raffs, Harder, Wu and Proposed method and the capacities
of corresponding critical gap methods are compared. Based on the importance, traffic
and type of road, three uncontrolled intersections were selected in Vishakhapatnam.
From the selected study area the traffic parameters were extracted by the videography
and the capacity, control delay and Level of service of vehicular streams are
evaluated according to the procedures’ in HCM2000.
Key words: Unsignalized Intersections, mixed traffic conditions, Critical gap,
Capacity, Control delay, Level of service.
Cite this Article: B. Someswara Rao, T. Rambabu and Dr. G. Venkata Rao, Analysis
of Capacity and Level of Service at Uncontrolled Intersections under Heterogeneous
Traffic Conditions. International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology, 8(8),
2017, pp. 181–190.
http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJCIET?Volume=8&Issue=8

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 B. Someswara Rao, T. Rambabu and Dr. G. Venkata Rao

1. INTRODUCTION
Unsignalized intersections are defined as the intersections where traffic operates on the basis
of the priority of traffic movements. Capacity at unsignalized intersections is defined as a
result of the basic capacity within ideal traffic conditions related to various adjustment and
correction factors, which included the impact of road environment, geometric design, and
traffic conditions. The left-turning movement (in contrast with the straight on or right-turn
movements) from the minor street has, for example, the lowest priority according to the
corresponding traffic laws in many countries. In Indian condition it is applied to the right
turning movements. The performance of an unsignalized intersection is strongly influenced by
the delay caused by low-priority movements on minor roads. They are the major source for
vehicular conflict resulting delay, accident and congestion. By improving design and
operation of the unsignalized intersection we can minimize the user cost delay. Improvement
in design and operation largely depends on how accurately capacity and delay are estimated in
response to alternative policies and design.At Two Way Stopped Controlled (TWSC)
intersections, the minor road is controlled by stop sign and the approaches that are not
controlled by any signs referred as major street approaches. A three-legged intersection is
considered to be a standard type of TWSC intersection if the single minor street approach (i.e.
the stem of the T configuration) is controlled by a stop sign

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Popat et al. (1989) developed a simulation model for a T-intersection and developed
relationship between flow on major and minor roads, mean delay, total delay and queue
lengths and the critical gap is considered as constant four seconds. They concluded that,
minor road vehicles enter the minor road traffic, if the available gap is greater than four
seconds or else the vehicle will wait or slow down. Brilon et al. (1999) provided an overview
of some of the methods used for estimation of critical gaps at unsignalized intersections. They
evaluated various methods based on the condition that results of the estimation process should
not depend on the traffic volume on the major approach during the time of observation and
estimation shall be applied under all under saturated traffic conditions at unsignalized
intersections on fulfilment of the condition. They reported that the maximum likelihood
procedure and Hewitt's method yielded best results which can be used for evaluation of
critical gaps. Hagring(2000) calculated different critical gaps for two major lanes using
maximum likelihood method. They observed that critical gaps differ between the two major
lanes. Ashalatha et al. (2011) estimated the critical gap by some of the existing methods like
lag, Harders, logit, modified Raff and Hewitt methods at unsignalized T-intersection. The
critical gap variation by these methods highlights the incapability of the existing methods to
address the mixed traffic conditions. An alternate procedure for street estimation of critical
gap making use of clearing behaviour of vehicles in conjunction with gap acceptance data is
proposed.

3. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

• To estimate the critical gap with various critical gap methods like Raffs, Harder, Wu and
Proposed method by IIT Roorke
• To analyze the capacity of streams of minor and major turns of selected intersections using
Highway Capacity Manual (2000)
• To determine the control delay, Queue Length and Level of service of minor and major
streams
• To compare HCM Capacities of different critical gap methods

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 Analysis of Capacity and Level of Service at Uncontrolled Intersections under Heterogeneous
Traffic Conditions

4. STUDY AREA
For conducting the study, three uncontrolled T-intersections in Vishakhapatnam city, Andhra
Pradesh state, India are selected. The three intersections are Maddilapalem, MVP colony and
Tagarapuvalasa. All the three intersections are two-way-stop-controlled (TWSC)
intersections. All the intersections are having major road with four lanes and minor road with
two lanes. The naming given for three intersections shown in table

Table 1 Coding of intersections

Intersection Code Intersection Name
A Maddelapalem 3-legged Intersection
B MVP Colony 3-legged Intersection
C Tagarapuvalasa 3-legged Intersection

Figure 1 Intersection (A) Figure 2 Intersection (B) Figure 3 Intersection (C)

5. DATA COLLECTION & EXTRACTION

For the selected intersections, the data is collected by videography technique. Video recording
is done for Two hours for morning (8 AM to 10 AM) and evening hours (4 PM to 6 PM) for
three intersections during peak hours. The traffic parameters like traffic volume, vehicle entry
time, vehicle exit time, critical gap, follow-up time are extracted after video recording is done.
Sample of data extraction of intersection A is as show in below.

Table 2 Data extraction of Intersection-A during Peak hours of Morning and Evening
Intersection Direction CYCLES 2W 3W 4W BUS LCV HCV TOTAL
EW 35 3206 1582 1187 206 103 141 6460
WE 36 4934 2029 1378 230 132 118 8857
Intersection A ES 4 616 280 157 7 2 0 1066
(Morning WS 11 456 169 153 2 3 0 794
Hours) SW 19 242 91 99 3 3 0 457
SE 24 1243 186 346 5 13 0 1817
% Share 0.66 54.99 22.30 17.07 2.33 1.32 1.33 100.00
EW 32 3632 1376 1116 293 142 117 6708
WE 22 3765 1443 1578 436 166 134 7544
Intersection A ES 0 782 259 232 29 22 0 1324
(Evening WS 0 449 190 168 37 22 4 870
Hours) SW 17 223 108 94 6 2 0 450
SE 13 1032 175 249 9 16 0 1494
% Share 0.46 53.74 19.31 18.69 4.40 2.01 1.39 100.00

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 B. Someswara Rao, T. Rambabu and Dr. G. Venkata Rao

6. ESTIMATION OF CRITICAL GAP WITH DIFFERENT METHODS

The Critical gap is Tc, is defined as the minimum gap required in major stream for a minor
stream vehicle to cross the intersection safely. Thus, the driver’s critical gap is the minimum
that would be acceptable. A particular driver would reject any gaps if the gap is less than the
critical gap and he would accept the gap if it is greater than or equal to the critical gap. The
follow-up time Tf is defined as the time interval between the departure of one vehicle from the
minor street and the departure of the next vehicle using the same major street headway under
continues queuing on the minor street

Figure 4 Gap Acceptance study for Intersection A

6.1. Raffs Method

Based on Raffs definition, the critical gap L is the gap which has the property that the number
of accepted gaps shorter than L is the same as the number of rejected longer than L. This
could be found from the intersection of %Gap Accepted and %Gap Rejected Curves. And to
draw the graph origin software is used.
The estimated critical gaps of intersection A by using raffs is shown in fig 5 and fid 6

Figure 5 Critical gap estimation for Major Right turns Figure 6 Critical gap estimation for Minor Right turn

6.2. Harder Method

This method is quite equal to Lag method. In this method the critical gap is estimated on the
basis of Accepted gap data only where as in lag method it is on the basis of lag data. Here the
probability of accepting gap is measured using the equation (1) and the time of interval is
assumed as ∆t=0.5 seconds.

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 Analysis of Capacity and Level of Service at Uncontrolled Intersections under Heterogeneous
Traffic Conditions
𝐴
𝑟𝑖 = 𝑁𝑖 (1)
𝑖

Where,Ai is the number of accepted gaps during time interval i and Ni is the total number
of observed gaps during interval i

6.3. Macroscopic Probability Equilibrium Method by Wu

He proposed model based on the equilibrium probability of accepted and rejected gaps. This
model considers all relevant gaps and produce empirical probability distribution function of
critical gap directly. And it is giving similar results when comparing with maximum
likelihood method (MLM).The main use of this model is it provides true average of critical
headway, and it does not require any predefined distribution function of critical gaps. And this
method we can easily implemented in Excel sheet.

(a) Critical gap estimation for Major Right turn (b) Critical gap estimation for Major Right turns

Figure 6 CDFs of Accepted, Rejected & Critical gaps for Intersection-A

6.4. Proposed Method by Abdullah Ahmad

It is proposed by Abdullah Ahmad (IIT Roorke), the distribution function 𝐹𝑐 (𝑡) lies between
the distribution functions of rejected gaps 𝐹𝑟 (𝑡) and accepted gaps 𝐹𝑎 (𝑡) as said by the
Wu.so that the difference of all accepted and all rejected gaps critical gap is minimum. To
calculate the critical gap the function given in the equation 3 should be minimized

[
Min ∑𝑛𝑖=1{𝐴𝑏𝑠(𝑇𝑐 -𝑅𝑖 ) + 𝐴𝑏𝑠(𝐴𝑖 -𝑇𝑐 )}] (3)
Where, Ai =Accepted gap by ith entering vehicle (seconds)
Ri =Highest rejected gap by ith entering vehicle (seconds)
Tc= Critical gap value in seconds

7. HCM PROCEDURE FOR CAPACITY ANALYSIS

To calculate the capacity the procedure of HCM 200 Manual is used. The HCM method
determines minor road capacity based on availability gap in major traffic stream. This
procedure requires a priority of traffic volumes, potential capacity of each movement,
adjustments of potential capacities based on impedance factors. The required input data is
volume of each movement, critical gap & Follow time.
Step 1: Divide the peak 15 min flow rate by PHF (Peak Hour Factor)

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 B. Someswara Rao, T. Rambabu and Dr. G. Venkata Rao

Step 2: Determination of conflict volume

Step 3: Computation of potential capacity.
Step 4: Adjustments to potential capacity and computation of movement capacity
Step 5: Estimation of queue length
Step 6: Estimation of Control Delay & Level of Service
The traffic stream 1,2 and 3 are not impended by any other movements so rank 1 is given
to these streams and rank 2 is allocated to movements 4 and 5 because these streams get
impended by streams of traffic flow of 1 & 5 and rank 3 is given to 5 because it is highly
impended by movements 4 & 1. The streams and their ranking of the selected study area are
shown in below figure

Figure 7 Priority order of streams and their rankings of T-intersection

The capacity of a specific movement at intersection approach is determined by the
following equation given by the HCM 2000
𝑒 −𝑣𝑐,𝑥 𝑡𝑐,𝑥 /3600
𝐶𝑝.𝑥 = 𝑉𝑐,𝑥 −𝑣𝑐,𝑥 𝑡𝑓,𝑥 (4)
1 − 𝑒 3600
Where,
Cp,x= Potential capacity of minor movement x (veh/h),Vc,x= Conflicting flow rate for
movement x (veh/h)
tc,x= Critical gap for minor movement x (sec), tf,x= Follow-up time for minor movement
x(sec)
Criteria of Level of service for uncontrolled intersection based on control delay is shown
below table

Table 3 Level service criteria for unsignalized intersection (HCM 2000)

Average Control Delay
Level of Service Description
( Sec/Veh)

A 0-10 Free Flow

B >10-15 Stable Flow (slight delays)

C >15-25 Stable flow (acceptable delays)

D >25-35 Approaching unstable flow

E >35-50 Unstable flow

F >50 Forced flow (congested and queues fail to clear)

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 Analysis of Capacity and Level of Service at Uncontrolled Intersections under Heterogeneous
Traffic Conditions

8. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The obtained critical gaps of all intersections with different critical gap methods have been
shown in table 3.and these critical gaps are estimated by considering all vehicle type i.e. 2W,
3W, 4W&Heavy commercial vehicle for each intersection.it is found that with increase in
vehicle size the critical gap is increased. And the critical gap is depended by space occupied
by vehicle category. And the obtained field critical gap by different methods under
heterogeneous traffic conditions are also lower than the critical gap values suggested in HCM
2000.From the obtained results, it is observed that the critical gap values obtained by harder
method is higher when we compared with other methods. Almost similar values are obtained
for Raff’s & Wu methods.

Table 4 Estimated critical gap values & Follow up times of each intersection
Critical gap by various methods Follow Up
Intersection Movement
Raffs Harder Wu IIT-Roorke time
Minor Left 1.702 2.004 1.650 1.680 3.639
A Minor Right 2.740 3.489 3.125 2.650 3.984
Major Right 2.829 3.480 2.778 3.060 3.730
Minor Left 2.010 2.682 2.313 2.120 3.649
B Minor Right 2.800 4.724 3.168 3.560 4.422
Major Right 3.270 3.540 3.120 2.980 4.049
Minor Left 1.308 1.834 1.281 1.290 3.259
C Minor Right 2.370 2.713 2.464 2.320 3.100
Major Right 2.250 4.703 2.493 2.870 3.432
Intersection A, The fig 8a and 8b shows the variation of capacity when we compared with
different critical gap methods during peak hours and it is noticed that the capacity estimation
with harder critical gap method is giving lower values compared to other methods because of
higher critical gag values. And the minor rights turn has lower capacities because of higher
conflicting volume. Minor left turn has higher capacity value among the other movements.
Fig 9 shows the variation of minor & major street capacities with changes in conflict flow rate
on Major Street. Here as the conflicting flow rate is increasing the capacities of minor &
major streams are decreasing. Fig 10 shows the control delay and LOS of Intersection A
Intersection-A Intersection-A
1200 1200
1000 1000
Capacity
Capacity

800 800
600 600
400 400
200 Minor Left 200 Minor Left
0 Minor Right 0 Minor Right

Major Right Major Right

Critical Gap Methods Crical Gap Methods

Figure 8 (a) Capacity during morning peak hour Figure 8 (b) Capacity during evening peak hour

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 B. Someswara Rao, T. Rambabu and Dr. G. Venkata Rao

Conflict flow rate Vs Capacity

(Intersection-A)
1500
Capacity

1000
Minor Left
500
Minor Right
0 Major Right
0 2000 4000 6000
Conflict flow rate

Figure 9 Capacity reduction with increasing conflict volume Figure 10 Control Delay & LOS of Intersection A

8.1. Comparison of Capacities and LOS of Selected Intersections during Peak

Hours
The calculated capacities & Level of service of turning movements minor left, minor right &
minor right during peak hours is shown in below table 4 &5 and it is found that the
intersection C has better capacities than other intersections. And the intersection B minor right
turn has very low capacities among all turning movements. Minor left turn at all intersections
have higher capacities. The LOS obtained by different critical gaps are compared and almost
similar LOS for Raffs, Wu and New methods. And the LOS obtained by harder method has
higher LOS compared to other methods. And Intersection B, Minor right has LOS F which is
in worst condition. And for all minor left turns have LOS is A which is in good condition. The
intersection C is experiencing LOS A for all turning movements

Table 5 Estimated capacities during morning peak hours of all intersections

Capacities (Morning Peak Hour)
Intersection Movement
Raffs Method Harder Method Wu Method IIT Roorke
Minor Left 985.72 916.38 998.18 990.98
A Minor Right 441.98 293.00 365.81 456.47
Major Right 722.02 609.37 731.68 679.85
Minor Left 872.89 717.76 789.16 841.51
B Minor Right 330.05 196.85 285.95 243.12
Major Right 363.07 312.45 394.66 426.61
Minor Left 1135.54 1077.67 1138.60 1137.58
C Minor Right 971.58 906.47 955.14 977.77
Major Right 965.89 689.83 934.21 887.11

Table 6 Estimated LOS during morning peak hours of all intersections

Level of Service (Morning Peak Hour)
Intersection Movement
Raffs Method Harder Method Wu Method IIT Roorke
Minor Left A A A A
A Minor Right C E C C
Major Right B B B B
Minor Left A B A A
B Minor Right E F F F
Major Right C C C C
Minor Left A A A A
C Minor Right A A A A
Major Right A B A A

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 Analysis of Capacity and Level of Service at Uncontrolled Intersections under Heterogeneous
Traffic Conditions

The obtained capacities & LOS of all intersections during evening peak hours shown in
below tables 6&7.and the Capacities, Control delay, LOS has been calculated by various
critical gap methods. And it is noticed that intersection B, major right turn is experiencing
LOS B whereas as in the morning it has LOS A and minor right turn has LOS F as same
observed during morning peak hours .

Table 7 Estimate capacities during Evening peak hours of all intersections

Capacities (Evening Peak Hour)
Intersection Movement IIT
Raffs Method Harder Method Wu Method
Roorke
Minor Left 979.80 900.88 994.07 985.81
A Minor Right 377.73 235.60 311.61 384.76
Major Right 679.93 556.68 690.67 633.35
Minor Left 935.32 825.83 884.26 916.46
B Minor Right 448.27 316.36 396.99 347.89
Major Right 564.06 518.42 591.13 617.57
Minor Left 1135.54 1077.67 1138.60 1137.58
C Minor Right 990.46 930.53 975.56 995.77
Major Right 965.89 689.83 934.21 887.11

Table 8 Estimate capacities during Evening peak hours of all intersections

Level of Service (Evening Peak Hour)
Intersection Movement
Raffs Method Harder Method Wu Method IIT Roorke
Minor Left A A A A
A Minor Right D F D D
Major Right B B B B
Minor Left A A A A
B Minor Right F F F F
Major Right B B B B
Minor Left A A A A
C Minor Right A A A A
Major Right A B A A

9. CONCLUSIONS
Intersection A, The minor left turn has the maximum capacity i.e. 900 veh/hrduing morning
and evening peak hours and has highest performance with LOS A.and the capacity of minor
right is varying between 293 veh/hr to 456 veh/hr in the morning peak hour and it is reduced
to 235 veh/hr to 384 veh/hr during evening peak hours when calculated with four critical gap
methods. And it is experiencing LOS C in the morning and LOS D in the evening. The
capacity of major right turn is varying between 600 veh/hr to 730veh/hr in the morning and
550 veh/hr to 690 veh/hrin the evening peak hours and it has LOS is B during morning and
evening peak hours. The capacity estimation by harder method is giving lower capacity
values.
IntersectionB, The minor left turn has highest capacity and varying between 800 veh/hr to
900 veh/hr and has LOS A during morning and evening peak hours. The minor right turn has
lower capacity compared to all the movements of intersections i.e. 190 veh/hr to 230 veh/hr in
morning peak hour and 316 veh/hr to 448 veh/hr in the evening peak hour and it has lowest
performance with LOS F.and the major right turn has lower capacity 312 veh/hr to 426 veh/hr
with LOS C in the morning peak hour and capacities are increased in evening peak hours 512
veh/hr to 617 veh/hr with LOS B

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 B. Someswara Rao, T. Rambabu and Dr. G. Venkata Rao

Intersection C,The capacity of minor left turn is almost 1000 veh/hr in the morning and
peak hours and minor right and major right have capacity is varying between 900 to 1000
veh/hr. And this intersection have highest performance with LOS is A when compared to
other two intersections

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