Effects of Pedestrian Crossing on Minor Road Capacity at Two-Way Stop-Controlled Intersections

Abstract

Two-way stop-controlled (TWSC) intersections have been used extensively in the United States and other parts of the world when traffic signal control is not warranted. However, it was found that when a major road vehicle yields to crossing pedestrians, minor road traffic could use this extra gap, which tends to improve the capacity of some minor vehicle movements. The current capacity modeling methods did not take into account the effects of the pedestrian crossing on minor road capacity. This paper proposes an analytical model to quantify the increased capacity of minor street movements contributed by minor street pedestrian crossings and validates the model using both field data collected at a three-leg TWSC intersection and through the stochastic simulation method. A sensitivity analysis was performed to reveal the impacts of various factors on minor road capacity. In general, it was found that minor road left-turn capacity at the study intersection was positively correlated to pedestrian crossing volume, yielding rate, and pedestrian crossing time. Besides, modeling results showed that under relatively heavier conflict traffic volume conditions, the effect of the pedestrian crossing on increased capacity on the minor road was more significant.