Traffic Rotaries

Introduction
 Special form of at-grade intersections
laid out for the movement of traffic in
one direction around a central traffic
island
 All major conflicts namely the
collision between through and right-
turn movements are converted into
milder conflicts namely merging and
diverging
 The vehicles entering the rotary are
gently forced to move in a clockwise
direction in orderly fashion

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Traffic Movements
 Rotary intersection
• Advantages
– Traffic flow is regulated to only one direction of
movement

– Eliminating severe conflicts between crossing

movements

– All the vehicles entering the rotary are gently

forced to reduce the speed and continue to
move at slower speed

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 Rotary intersection
• Advantages
– None of the vehicles need to be stopped, unlike
in a signalized intersection

– Accidents and their severity are much less in

rotaries

– Rotaries are self governing

– Suited for moderate traffic, especially with

irregular geometry or intersections

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 Rotary intersection
• Limitations
– All the vehicles are forced to slow down and negotiate the
intersection

– Cumulative delay will be much higher than channelized

intersection

– Even when there is relatively low traffic, the vehicles are forced
to reduce their speed

– Rotaries require large area of relatively flat land making them

costly at urban areas

– Not suitable when there is high pedestrian movement

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 Guidelines for selection of rotaries
• Suitable
– Traffic entering from all the four approaches are
relatively equal

– More than four approaches

– If there is no separate lanes available for right-turn

traffic

– If the intersection geometry is complex

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 Guidelines for selection of rotaries
– Upper limiting volume 3000 vehicles per hour

– Lower limiting volume 500 vehicles per hour

– Beneficial when the proportion of the right-turn traffic is very

high; typically if it is more than 30%

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 Traffic operations in a rotary
• Diverging
– Traffic operation when the vehicles moving in one direction is
separated into different streams according to their destinations

• Merging
– Merging is the opposite of diverging
– Referred to as the process of joining the traffic coming from
different approaches and going to a common destination into a
single stream

• Weaving
– Combined movement of both merging and diverging
movements in the same direction

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 Design elements

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 Design elements
• Design speed
• Radius at entry
• Exit width
• Radius of central
island
• Weaving length and
width
• Entry and exit
widths

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 Design elements

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 Design elements
• Design speed
– 30 and 40 kmph for urban and rural areas
respectively

• Entry, exit and central island radius

– Entry radius of about 20 and 25 meters is ideal for an
urban and rural design respectively

– Exit radius higher than entry radius and radius of the

rotary island so that vehicles will discharge from
rotary at a higher rate

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 Design elements
• Entry, exit and central island radius
– A general practice is to keep the exit radius as 1.5 to
2 times the entry radius

– If pedestrian movement is higher at the exit approach,

then the exit radius could be set as same as that of
the entry radius

– The radius of the central island which is about 1.3

times that of the entry curve is adequate for all
practical purposes

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 Rotary Design Elements
Weaving Length
• It determines the ease with which the traffic can
merge and diverge.
• It is decided on the basis of factors such as width of
weaving section, average width of entry, total traffic
and speed.
Width of Carriageway at Entry and Exit
 Design elements

Weaving width

e1 is width of the carriageway at the entry

e2 is carriageway width at exit

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 Capacity of a rotary
• TRL’s empirical formula

average entry and exit width

Capacity
proportion of weaving traffic

weaving width
length of weaving section

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 Capacity of a rotary
• Weaving operation in a rotary

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 Capacity of a rotary
• Capacity formula is valid only if
– Weaving width at the rotary is in between 6 and 18
meters.

– Ratio of weaving width to weaving length of the

roundabout is in between 0.12 and 0.4

– Proportion of weaving traffic to non-weaving traffic in

the rotary is in the range of 0.4 and 1

– Weaving length available at the intersection is in

between 18 and 90 m

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 Example

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 Example- Solution

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 Example- Solution

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 Example- Solution

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 Example- Solution

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