Operational Performance Evaluation of the Median U-turn Intersection

In Egypt, recently, unconventional intersections have gained popularity among policymakers where conventional countermeasures that exemplify increasing cycle length, actuated signals, and signal coordination systems did not have the ability to overcome the operational problems of traffic congestion. The most important of these intersections is the intersection of the median U-turn (MUT). This research evaluated and investigated the operational performance of the MUT in urban areas under balanced/unbalanced volume scenarios. SYNCHRO was used to optimize the signal cycle length, which were extracted from SYNCHRO and used as input in PTV VISSIM (student version). The average vehicle delay and overall capacity for intersection was used as measures of effectiveness in comparison between the MUT and the conventional counterpart. The MUT intersection had the lowest average delay under balanced and unbalanced volume conditions in all scenarios. The conventional intersection had the lowest capacity, around 950 vehicles per hour/ approach, while the MUT had the highest capacity, around 1650 vehicles per hour/ approach. Compared to this value, the capacity of the MUT is 57% higher than conventional intersection. Finally, the distance between the main and second intersections was investigated of the MUT under balanced volumes. The distance of 300 meters between the main intersection and crossover U-turn was the best in cases of heavy traffic volumes that were close to the capacity of the intersection. Also, the distance of 200 m was well in cases of moderate traffic volumes, while the distance of 100 m had the highest delay for all levels of volumes.