title: Safety evaluation of signalized intersections with left-turn waiting area in China.
abstract: In recent years the metropolitans in China have seen the surging installations of the left-turn waiting area (LWA) at the signalized intersections. The design allows the left-turning vehicles to enter the intersection at the onset of the through green phase (of the same approach) and wait for the exclusive left-turn signal at the LWA. The LWA layout can effectively reduce the probability of stranded and queue overflow of the left-turn vehicles, but no study is conducted yet to assess the safety performance of the signalized intersections with LWA. The paper adopts the traffic conflict technique (represented by post-encroachment time), compares the discrepancy of conflict types between intersections with LWA and without, and develops the severity models to identify the contributing factors for the left-turn conflicts. Results demonstrate that the left-turn volume, driving outside the LWA, running red light, the presence of secondary conflicts, and the rear-end conflicts significantly increase the severities of traffic conflicts at the LWA. The findings serve to provide recommendations to revise the current design standard of the LWA (GB5768-2009) and consequently improve the safety operations of signalized intersections with LWA in China.
authors.affiliation: School of Transportation and Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, National United Engineering Laboratory of Integrated and Intelligent Transportation, 111 Erhuan Road, Beiyiduan, Chengdu 610031, China. Electronic address: xjiang@swjtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xinguo
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: School of Transportation and Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, National United Engineering Laboratory of Integrated and Intelligent Transportation, 111 Erhuan Road, Beiyiduan, Chengdu 610031, China.
authors.forename: Guopeng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Transportation and Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, National United Engineering Laboratory of Integrated and Intelligent Transportation, 111 Erhuan Road, Beiyiduan, Chengdu 610031, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.affiliation: School of Transportation and Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, National United Engineering Laboratory of Integrated and Intelligent Transportation, 111 Erhuan Road, Beiyiduan, Chengdu 610031, China.
authors.forename: Wenbo
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Fan
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D001334:Automobile Driving; D002681:China; D004779:Environment Design; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012306:Risk; D012449:Safety
keywords: Affic conflict technique; Left-turn waiting area; Ordered probit model; Post-encroachment time