Analysis of a Signalized Intersection with Dynamic Use of the Left-Turn Lane for Opposite through Traffic

For signalized intersections with a quantitative imbalance between the approach and exit lanes, this study proposes a method for the dynamic use of the left-turn lane for opposite through traffic to improve the efficiency of the signalized intersection. The complete scheme of this method mainly consists of three parts: the location routes of the dynamic lane, the temporal scheme, and the spatial scheme. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this method, a simulation scheme comparing the intersection with and without the dynamic lane is designed using VISSIM. The parameters of the simulation model, including the traffic simulation environment parameters and built-in VISSIM models, are calibrated by the field data collected from an intersection in Nanjing, P. R. China. The results of the simulation indicate that this method decreases the average delay and average queue length of the intersection effectively for the intersection with a quantitative imbalance between the approach and exit lanes under the conditions of different through volumes or left-turn ratios. The maxima were 46.9% (average delay) and 68.3% (average queue length) for all situations. Lastly, some suggestions are presented for the application of this method.