Development of Traffic Signal Operation Strategies On Median Bus Lane

For urban highway network, traffic control strategy paradigm has been shifted from the private auto-oriented to the public transit-oriented. Introduction of exclusive median bus lanes (EMBL) in Seoul, Korea, has especially accelerated such changes in transportation policy and thus highway environment. Left-turning movement treatment at signalized intersections where EMBL pass through has been emerged as one of the rising problems associated with a current signal head with 4-signal lens, the Korea standard. This study proposes a new signal phase operation scheme for signal operation at an isolated intersection where EMBL pass through. The authors propose to use of an exclusive bus signal head indicating right-of-way of transits on EMBL only. Based on it, three different phase operation scheme were developed for left-turn treatments for traffic control with (1) traffic responsive control mode and (2) time-of-day traffic control mode. In addition, methodologies to design and develop signal maps for the proposed signal phase schemes are also developed. The proposed operation can only be possible when additional uses of signal state relay boards are allowed.