The Effect of Small Cars on the Capacity of Signalized Urban Intersections

Gerald N. Steuart and Bu-Yong Shin
Additional contact information
Gerald N. Steuart: University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Bu-Yong Shin: McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Transportation Science, 1978, vol. 12, issue 3, 250-263

Abstract: Time headways between vehicles being discharged from a queue at a signalized urban intersection is a measure of the intersection’s capacity. An event recorder actuated by tape switches on the road surface is used to measure headways at various signalized intersections in Toronto. The headways during saturation flow are related to the size of the vehicles and it is found that vehicles follow a small car with a closer headway than a full-sized car and a small car follows a vehicle closer than a full-sized car. The combined effect when both the lead and following vehicles are small cars is found to yield the smallest headways. This combined effect is most significant for the vehicles at the beginning of the queue. As a result, it is estimated that the capacity of a signalized intersection is increased by up to 15% for a stream of small cars over a stream of full-sized cars.

Date: 1978
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/trsc.12.3.250 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:12:y:1978:i:3:p:250-263

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Transportation Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().