Eliminating Right-Turn-on-Red (RTOR) at Key Intersections in a City Core

• Main Author: Aspnäs, Frida
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Linköpings universitet, Kommunikations- och transportsystem 2012
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-91323

The City of Fredericton is the capital of New Brunswick, located in eastern Canada. Rightturn-on-red (RTOR) is a general practice at any traffic intersection in this maritime province. Many collisions between pedestrians and vehicles have been recorded at signalized intersections in the downtown area of the city. Due to the number of collisions, the City of Fredericton was interested in investigating how a restriction against RTOR could affect vehicular traffic. The purpose and goal of this project was to develop a calibrated traffic model of the downtown area of Fredericton that could be used for simulation studies. Two main changes were investigated: 1) a restriction against RTOR for each of eleven key intersections in the downtown area, and 2) a restriction against left-turns at one selected intersection. The traffic simulation model was also used for analyzing how factors such as pedestrian volumes, lane channelization, and turning proportions affect the changes in traffic conditions due to permitting, or prohibiting, right-turn-on-red. The traffic simulation model was created in the TSIS/CORSIM software. Several different scenarios were generated for analysis. The results of the simulation show that the traffic conditions in the whole downtown area will be affected when introducing a restriction against RTOR. Certain intersections show a relatively high change while others show no significant change at all. Several different factors were seen to affect the number of RTOR that could be performed at an intersection. One main factor was lane channelization. With a shared lane, the proportion of right-turning vehicles at the intersection was found to highly affect how many RTOR can be performed. Pedestrian volumes prove to be a third factor affecting the number of RTOR at an intersection. Overall results demonstrate that there are only a few intersections where it is suitable for the City of Fredericton to implement a restriction against RTOR.