Capacity Of Nonsignalized U-Turn Lanes
The Highway Capacity Manual 2000 (HCM) treats U turns as left turns for estimating saturation flow rate. However, the operational effects of U turns and left turns are different. U-turning vehicles have slower turning speeds than left-turning vehicles. Al-Masaeid (8) studied the capacity of U turns at unsignalized intersections as a function of the conflicting traffic flow on two opposing through lanes for median-divided roadways in Jordan . Figure 10 shows the field data collection results. He developed regression equations to predict the U-turn capacity based on the conflicting flows on two opposing through lanes.
C = 799 - 0.31 * qc
C = 1,545 - 790 * exponential (qc/3,600)
C = 799 - 0.62*qcp
Where:
C = capacity of U-turn movement in passenger car equivalent units per hour (PCU/hr).
qc = conflicting traffic flow on two lanes (PCU/hr).
qcp = conflicting traffic flow per lane (PCU/hr).
Yang et al. (9) studied the gap acceptance of U-turn maneuvers at median opening for 10 sites in Tampa, FL, and concluded that the critical gap ranged from 5.8 seconds to 7.4 seconds. Carter et al. (10) collected data at 14 signalized intersections with U turns in North Carolina. Based on a large database, they recommend a saturation flow adjustment factor of 0.82 for U-turn lanes at signalized intersections without conflicting right-turn overlap phase on the side street. Tsao and Ando (11) and Liu et al. (12) suggested saturation flow rate reduction factors of 0.8 and 0.76 for U-turn lanes at signalized intersections, respectively.