Abstract
Most U.S. highway agencies recognize the importance of designing safe, short, and comfortable paths for pedestrians. Providing such an acceptable condition for pedestrians requires specific attention at intersections and service interchanges due to their interaction with other modes of transportation. The main objective of this research was to analyze pedestrian operation at two new service interchanges—the synchronized and Milwaukee B interchanges—in comparison with four existing designs. The analysis consists of three main parts: (1) a general comparison among the designs for pedestrian performances in terms of safety, travel time, and the level of service; (2) investigation of the effects of vehicles on pedestrian performance; and (3) modeling the impact of pedestrians on the traffic operation of vehicles. A comprehensive series of simulation tests were run using VISSIM and Synchro to study the pedestrian performance of interchanges in various situations of traffic volume, turning traffic ratio, traffic distribution, and percentage of heavy vehicles. The results indicated that a relatively safe condition is expected for pedestrians in the proposed new designs in comparison with the existing interchanges; however, the pedestrians’ travel time was lower in all the existing designs than in the new designs except the diverging diamond interchange (DDI). The DDI, one of the most popular alternative interchanges, showed the worst performance in all the aspects of the pedestrian analysis. Despite the very good performance of conventional diamond interchange regarding pedestrian travel time and safety, pedestrians could have a significant negative impact on vehicle travel time through a diamond.
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