Analysis of a yield controlled highway intersection using microscopic traffic simulation

Highway intersections play great important roles in the well-being of the whole highway system. Inappropriate control of highway intersections usually leads to poor performance, which causes traffic accidents and congestions. Although there are many factors affecting intersection performance, traffic volumes and compositions are by far the most important factors. Besides, they are impossible to be controlled and are very variable. Because of these reasons, they have been widely analyzed whenever intersection controls are to be implemented or improved. The paper has analyzed the performance of a yield controlled highway intersection with average delay time, using microscopic traffic simulation. Influences of traffic volume and composition are studied and suggestions have been made concerning when signal control should be applied. At last, models have been setup to predict average delay time when traffic volume or composition changes.