Addressing dilemma zone issues with control solutions : final report.

Details

• Creators:
  Abbas, Montasir M. ; Wang, Qichao ; Higgs, Brian J. ; Sarabi, Donia Zaheri ; Machiani, Sahar Ghanipoor ; Mladenovic, Milos N. ; Fulari, Shrikant
• Corporate Creators:
  Virginia Transportation Research Council (VTRC)
• Corporate Contributors:
  Virginia. Dept. of Transportation ; United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Rural transit
  • Rural highways
  • Dilemma zone
  • Yellow interval (Traffic signal cycle)
  • Traffic signal intervals
  • Software
  • Red light running
  • Radar detectors Dilemma zones
  • signal timing
  • radar
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA/VTRC 17-R14
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States;Virginia
• Edition:
  Final report
• Corporate Publisher:
  Virginia Transportation Research Council (VTRC)
• Abstract:
  Rural, high-speed signalized intersections are associated with vehicle crashes attributable to problems in dilemma zones ; (DZs). DZs are areas where at the onset of yellow, some drivers may decide to proceed and some may decide to stop. This ; disagreement among drivers can lead to rear-end crashes and/or right-angle crashes. ; The purpose of this study was to evaluate different DZ protection methods and provide general guidelines with regard to ; the strengths and weaknesses of each method. Researchers developed general guidelines to assist engineers at the Virginia ; Department of Transportation in selecting the best DZ-protection method, based on a comparison of the estimates of predicted ; safety benefits for the different methods for a given set of traffic conditions. ; The results of this study indicate that green hold/termination systems and radar-based protection systems are superior to ; the multi-loop system, with the radar-based system providing the most protection. This is attributed to the capability of the radarbased ; system to monitor vehicle speeds continuously and act accordingly, whereas the green hold/termination system assumes ; constant vehicle speeds. The results also indicate that the prevailing multi-detector loop setups perform differently depending on ; traffic volume. ; The study recommends that the software developed in this study (DZ-Pro) be used to optimize the configuration of the ; detectors for the existing traffic volume. A before-and-after comparison of the frequency of red-light running indicated a ; significant reduction in red-light running (up to 80% reduction) when the radar-based DZ protection system was activated.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  RC00044
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/32156/dot_32156_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 3.44 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8c54ca3e6ffb238951e7c00ac3fe9ad8646e6a92478883bf930443fcf8efd5bb65202c1d70cff7941c60be897a29efe6e7911d8c0199c4170acee15ef209cd2c