Simulation Evaluation of Four-Hour-Volume Traffic Signal Warrant

Traffic signal warrants set the minimum conditions under which a traffic signal installation may be appropriate. The four-hour signal warrant in the current Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) was originally developed to overcome some of the shortcomings of the eight-hour signal warrant. The four-hour signal warrant is applied based on a set of critical vehicular volumes for different lane combinations of major and minor streets. An intersection meets this warrant if, in each of any four hours of an average day, the major and minor street volumes fall above the corresponding critical volumes. This paper describes an effort to use the CORSIM microscopic simulation model to evaluate the current design of the critical volume curves in the four-hour warrant. The results show significant differences in average control delay for the minor-street traffic under different volume combinations, lane configurations, turning volume percentages, heavy vehicle percentages, and number of major-street lanes (four versus six lanes), most of which are not currently considered in the four-hour warrant. This finding provides some preliminary evidence on the need to revise the current design standards of the existing four-hour warrant and to conduct further research for possible improvements to the warrant.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Zhu, Xuesong
  • Gan, Albert
  • Shen, L David
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2007-1-21 to 2007-1-25
• Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: TRB 86th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Microscopic traffic flow; Operations; Peak hour traffic; Traffic signal control systems; Traffic signals; Traffic simulation; Traffic volume; Warrants (Traffic control devices)
• Identifier Terms: CORSIM (Traffic simulation model); Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01049610
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 07-2892
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 21 2007 1:18PM