Evaluating Pedestrian Service of the New Super Diverging Diamond Interchange on Three Case Study Sites in Denver, Colorado

Muhammad Tahmidul Haq (), Amirarsalan Mehrara Molan and Khaled Ksaibati
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Muhammad Tahmidul Haq: Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
Amirarsalan Mehrara Molan: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS 38677, USA
Khaled Ksaibati: Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 24, 1-17

Abstract: Ensuring safe and comfortable conditions for pedestrians necessitates specific strategies at intersections and service interchanges where traffic and pedestrians interact in complex ways with other modes of transportation. This study aims to investigate pedestrian performance at the new Super Diverging Diamond Interchange (Super DDI) using real-world locations (i.e., I-225 and Mississippi Ave, I-25 and 120th Ave, and I-25 and Hampden Ave in Denver, Colorado). Three alternative designs, typical DDI, and two versions of Super DDI were considered to make a reasonable comparison with the existing Conventional Diamond Interchange (CDI). A comprehensive series of simulation models (192 scenarios with 960 runs) were tested using VISSIM and Synchro to analyze pedestrian operation (travel time, number of stops, and waiting time) in various traffic and pedestrian distributions. As one of the primary contributions in this paper, pedestrian safety was evaluated based on a surrogate performance measure called design flag, introduced by the new National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP-948) guideline. The results indicated that the proposed new Super DDI designs are relatively safe when compared with CDI and DDI. For example, a pedestrian analysis of one of the most popular alternative interchanges, DDI, showed potential for unsafe pedestrian conditions in all aspects.

Keywords: alternative interchanges; DDI; Super DDI; pedestrian performance; VISSIM; design flags (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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