Uncontrolled Intersection

Lecture notes in Traffic Engineering And Management

Date: August 5, 2014

Contents
 Introduction
o Categories of Intersection
o Two-way stop-controlled intersection
o All-way-stop-controlled intersection
 Gap acceptance and follow-up time
o Basic Terminologies
o Critical Gap
o Follow-up time
o Conflicting volume
 Potential Capacity
 Movement capacity and impedance effects
o Vehicular movements
o Pedestrian Movements
o Determining Shared Lane Capacity
 Determining control delay
o Performance measures
 Conclusion
 References
 Acknowledgments

Introduction
Uncontrolled intersections are the traffic junctions where there is
no explicit traffic control measures are adopted. The important
aspects that will be covered in this chapter are: the concept of
two-way stop controlled intersection, all-way stop controlled
intersection, gap acceptance, critical gap, follow-up time,
potential capacity, and delay determination. These concepts are
primarily adopted from Highway Capacity Manual.

Categories of Intersection
An intersection is a road junction where two or more roads either
meet or cross at grade. This intersection includes the areas
needed for all modes of travel: pedestrian, bicycle, motor vehicle,
and transit. Thus, the intersection includes not only the pavement
area, but typically the adjacent sidewalks and pedestrian curb cut
ramps.

All the road junctions designated for the vehicles to turn to

different directions to reach their desired destinations. Traffic
intersections are complex locations on any highway. This is
because vehicles moving in different direction want to occupy
same space at the same time. In addition, the pedestrians also
seek same space for crossing. Drivers have to make split second
decision at an intersection by considering his route, intersection
geometry, speed and direction of other vehicles etc. A small error
in judgment can cause severe accidents. It causes delay and it
depends on type, geometry, and type of control. Overall traffic
flow depends on the performance of the intersections. It also
affects the capacity of the road. Therefore, both from the accident
perspective and the capacity perspective, the study of
intersections are very important by the traffic engineers.
Intersection design can vary widely in terms of size, shape,
number of travel lanes, and number of turn lanes. Basically, there
are four types of intersections, determined by the number of road
segments and priority usage.

1. Priority Intersection: Occur where one of the intersecting

roads is given definite priority over the other. The minor
road will usually be controlled by some form of sing
marking, such as stop or yield sign; thus ensuring that
priority vehicles travailing on the main street will incur
virtually no delay.
2. Space sharing intersection: Are intended to permit fully
equally priority and to permit continuous movement for all
intersecting vehicle flows; example would be rotaries and
other weaving areas.
3. Time Sharing Intersection: Are those at which alternative
flows are given the right of way at different point in time.
This type of intersection is controlled by traffic signal or by
police officer.
4. Uncontrolled intersection: are the most common type of
intersection usually occurs where the intersecting roads are
 relatively equal importance and found in areas where there
is not much traffic shown in Fig. 1.

At uncontrolled intersection the arrival rate and individuals

drivers generally determine the manner of operation, while the
resulting performance characteristics are derived from joint
consideration of flow conditions and driver judgment and
behavior patterns. In simplest terms, an intersection, one flow of
traffic seeks gaps in the opposing flow of traffic.

At priority intersections, since one flow is given priority over the

right of way it is clear that the secondary or minor flow is usually
the one seeking gaps. By contrast at uncontrolled intersection,
each flow must seek gaps in the other opposing flow. When flows
are very light, which is the case on most urban and rural roads
large gaps exist in the flows and thus few situation arise when
vehicles arrive at uncontrolled intersection less than 10 second
apart or at interval close enough to cause conflicts. However
when vehicles arrive at uncontrolled intersection only a few
second apart potential conflicts exist and driver must judge their
relative time relationships and adjusts accordingly.

Generally one or both vehicles most adjust their speeds i.e.

delayed somewhat with the closer vehicle most often taking the
right of way; in a sense, of course, the earlier arriving vehicle has
priority and in this instance when two vehicles arrive
simultaneous, the rule of the road usually indicate priority for the
driver on the right. The possibility of judgmental in these,
informal priority situation for uncontrolled intersection is obvious.
At an Uncontrolled intersection: Service discipline is typically
controlled by signs (stop or yield signs) using two rules two way
stop controlled intersection (TWSC) and all way stop controlled
intersection (AWSC).
 Figure 1: Example showing uncontrolled intersection

Two-way stop-controlled intersection

Researchers rely on many specific definitions to describe the
performance of traffic operation systems. The clear understanding
of such terminology is an important element is studying two-way
stop-controlled (TWSC) traffic operation system characteristics;
defined as: One of the uncontrolled intersections with stop control
on the minor street shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 2: Two way stop controlled intersection

Characteristics of TWSC Intersections

At TWSC intersections, the stop-controlled approaches are

referred to as the minor street approaches; the intersection
approaches that are not controlled by stop signs are referred to
as the major street approaches. A three-leg intersection is
considered to be a standard type of TWSC intersection if the
single minor street approach is controlled by a stop sign. Three-
leg intersections where two of the three approaches are
controlled by stop signs are a special form of uncontrolled
intersection control.

Flows at TWSC Intersections

TWSC intersections assign the right-of-way among conflicting

traffic streams according to the following hierarchy:

1. The major street through and right-turning movements are

the highest-priority movements at a TWSC intersection. This
movements shown Fig. 3 are 2, 3, 5, 6, 15 and 16.
2. Vehicles turning left from the major street onto the minor
street yield only to conflicting major street through and
right-turning vehicles. All other conflicting movements yield
to these major street left-turning movements. The
movements on this rank are 1, 4, 13, 14, 9 and 12.
3. Minor Street through vehicles yield to all conflicting major
street through, right-turning, and left-turning movements.
The movements on this rank are 8 and 11.
4. Minor Street left-turning vehicles yield to all conflicting
major street through, right-turning, and left-turning vehicles
and to all conflicting minor street through and right-turning
vehicles. The movements on this rank are 7 and 10.

Figure 3: Traffic flow stream in two way stop controlled intersection

All-way-stop-controlled intersection
All-way-stop-controlled intersection (AWSC) are mostly used
approaching from all directions and is required to stop before
proceeding through the intersection as shown in Fig. 4. An all-
way stop may have multiple approaches and may be marked with
a supplemental plate stating the number of approaches.

The analysis of AWSC intersection is easier because all users

must stop. In this type of intersection the critical entity of the
capacity is the average intersection departure head way.
Secondary parameters are the number of cross lanes, turning
percentages, and the distribution volume on each approach. The
first step for the analysis of capacity is select approach called
subject approach the approach opposite to subject approach is
opposing approach, and the approach on the side of the subject
approach is are called conflicting approach.

Characteristics of AWSC intersections

AWSC intersections require every vehicle to stop at the

intersection before proceeding. Since each driver must stop, the
judgment as to whether to proceed into the intersection is a
function of traffic conditions on the other approaches. If no traffic
is present on the other approaches, a driver can proceed
immediately after the stop is made. If there is traffic on one or
more of the other approaches, a driver proceeds only after
determining that there are no vehicles currently in the
intersection and that it is the driver’s turn to proceed.

Figure 4: All way stop controlled intersection

Gap acceptance and follow-up
time
Gap acceptance is one of the most important components in
microscopic traffic characteristic. The gap acceptance theory
commonly used in the analysis of uncontrolled intersections
based on the concept of defining the extent drivers will be able to
utilize a gap of particular size or duration. A driver entering into
or going across a traffic stream must evaluate the space between
a potentially conflicting vehicle and decide whether to cross or
enter or not. One of the most important aspects of traffic
operation is the interaction of vehicles with in a single stream of
traffic or the interaction of two separate traffic streams. This
interaction takes place when a driver changes lanes merging in to
a traffic stream or crosses a traffic stream. Inherent in the traffic
interaction associated with these basic maneuvers is concept of
gap acceptance.

Basic Terminologies
1. Gap means the time and space that a subject vehicle needs
to merge adequately safely between two vehicles. Gap
acceptance is the minimum gap required to finish lane
changing safely. Therefore, a gap acceptance model can
help describe how a driver judges whether to accept or not.
2. Gap acceptance: The process by which a minor stream
vehicle accepts an available gap to maneuver.
3. Critical gap: The minimum major-stream headway during
which a minor-street vehicle can make a maneuver.
4. Lag: Time interval between the arrival of a yielding vehicle
and the passage of the next priority stream vehicle (Forward
waiting time).
5. Headway: The time interval between the arrivals of two
successive vehicles. Headway differs from gap because it is
measured from the front bumper of the front vehicle to the
front bumper of the next vehicle.
6. Minimum Headway: The minimum gap maintained by a
vehicle in the major traffic stream.
7. Follow-up time: Time between the departure of one
vehicle from the minor street and the departure of the next
 vehicle using the same gap under a condition of continuous
queuing.
8. Delay: The additional travel time experienced by a driver,
passenger or pedestrian.
9. Conflicting movements: The traffic streams in conflict at
an intersection.
10. Capacity: The maximum hourly rate at which persons
or vehicles can reasonably be expected to traverse a point
or uniform section of a lane or a roadway during a given
time period under prevailing roadway, traffic, and control
conditions.

Critical Gap

The critical gap for movement x is defined as the minimum

average acceptable gap that allows intersection entry for one
minor street or major street. The term average acceptable means
that the average driver would accept or choose to utilize a gap of
this size. The gap is measured as the clear time in the traffic
stream defined by all conflicting movements. Thus, the model

assumes that all gaps shorter than are rejected or unused,

while all gaps equal to or larger than would be accepted or

used. The adjusted critical gap computed as follows.

(1)

where, is the critical gap for movement `` '', is the base

critical gap from Table. 1 is the adjustment factor for heavy

vehicles is the proportion of heavy vehicles is the

adjustment factor for grade is the percent grade divided by

100, is the adjustment factor for each part of a two-stage gap

acceptance process, and is the critical gap adjustment factor

for intersection geometry.

Follow-up time
The follow up time for movement `` '' is the minimum
average acceptable time for a second queued minor street vehicle
to use a gap large enough admit two or more vehicles. Follow-up
times were measured directly by observing traffic flow. Resulting
follow-up times were analyzed to determine their dependence on
different parameters such as intersection layout. This
measurement is similar to the saturation flow rate at signalized
intersection. Table. 1 and 2 shows base or unadjusted values of
the critical gap and follow up time for various movements. Base
critical gaps and follow up times can be adjusted to account for a
number of conditions, including heavy - vehicle presence grade,
and the existence of two stage gap acceptance. Adjusted Follow
up Time computed as:
(2)

where, is the follow-up time for minor movement is the

base follow-up time from table 1 is the adjustment factor for

heavy vehicles, and is the proportion of heavy vehicles for

minor movement.
Table 1: Base critical gap and follow up times

  Base Follow-up
Base Critical Gap, ,base (s)
Vehicle Movement Two-Lane Four-Lane Time

  Major Street Major Street

(s)
Left turn from major 4.1 4.1 2.2
Right turn from minor 6.2 6.9 3.3
Through traffic on minor 6.5 6.5 4.0
Left turn from minor 7.1 7.5 3.5
Table 2: Adjustments to base critical gap and follow up times
Adjustment Values(s)
Factor  

1.0 Two-lane major streets

  2.0 Four-lane major streets

0.1 Movements 9 and 12

   0.2 Movements 7,8,10 and 11
  1.0 Otherwise

1.0 First or second stage of two-stage process

  0.0 For one-stage process

0.7 Minor-street LT at T-intersection

  0.0 Otherwise

0.9 Two-lane major streets

  1.0 Four-lane major streets

Conflicting volume
The traffic flow process at un-controlled intersection is
complicated since there are many distinct vehicular movements
to be accounted for. Most of this movements conflict with
opposing vehicular volumes. These conflicts result in decreasing
capacity, increasing delay, and increasing potentials for traffic
accidents. Consider a typical four-legged intersection as shown in
Fig. 5 The numbers of conflicts for competing through movements
are 4, while competing right turn and through movements are 8.
The conflicts between right turn traffics are 4, and between left
turn and merging traffic are 4. The conflicts created by
pedestrians will be 8 taking into account all the four approaches.
Diverging traffic also produces about 4 conflicts. Therefore, a
typical four legged intersection has about 32 different types of
conflicts.
 Figure 5: Conflicts at four legged intersection
Conflicts at an intersection are different for different types of
intersection. The essence of the intersection control is to resolve
these conflicts at the intersection for the safe and efficient
movement of both vehicular traffic and pedestrians. The
movements for determining conflict in four legged intersection
are:

1. Major street left turns seek gaps through the opposing

through movement, the opposing right turn movement and
pedestrians crossing the far side of the minor street.
2. Minor street right turns seek to merge in to the right
most lane of the major street, which contains through and
right turning vehicles. Each right turn from the minor street
must also cross the two pedestrians path shown.
3. Through movements from the minor street must cross all
major street vehicular and pedestrians flows.
4. Minor street left turns must deal not only with all major
street traffic flow but with two pedestrians flows and the
opposing minor street through and right turn movements.

Through this movements the conflict volume ( ) for the given

movement is can be computed. As an example the formula of
conflict volume for movement 7 for three legged intersection
shown in Fig. 6 computed as:
(3)

Figure 6: Three legged intersection conflicts volume determination for movement 7

Potential Capacity
Capacity is defined as the maximum number of vehicles,
passengers, or the like, per unit time, which can be
accommodated under given conditions with a reasonable
expectation of occurrence. Potential capacity describes the
capacity of a minor stream under ideal conditions assuming that
it is unimpeded by other movements and has exclusive use of a
separate lane.

Once of the conflicting volume, critical gap and follow up time are
known for a given movement its potential capacity can be
estimated using gap acceptance models. The concept of potential
capacity assumes that all available gaps are used by the subject
movement i.e.; there are no higher priority vehicular or
pedestrian movements and waiting to use some of the gaps it
also assumes that each movement operates out of an exclusive
lane. The potential capacity of can be computed using the
formula:

(4)

where, is the potential capacity of minor movement (veh/h),

is the conflicting flow rate for movement (veh/h), is the

critical gap for minor movement , and is the follow-up time

movement .

Movement capacity and

impedance effects
Vehicles use gaps at a TWSC intersection in a prioritized manner.
When traffic becomes congested in a high-priority movement, it
can impede lower-priority movements that are streams of Ranks
3 and 4 as shown in Fig. 4 from using gaps in the traffic stream,
reducing the potential capacity of these movements. The ideal
potential capacities must be adjusted to reflect the impedance
effects of higher priority movements that may utilize some of the
gaps sought by lower priority movements. This impedance may
come due to both pedestrians and vehicular sources called
movement capacity.

The movement capacity is found by multiplying the potential

capacity by an adjustment factor. The adjustment factor is the
product of the probability that each impeding movement will be
blocking a subject vehicle. That is

(5)

where, is the movement capacity in vph, is the potential

capacity movement x in vph, is the probability that impeding

vehicular movement is not blocking the subject flow; (also
referred to as the vehicular impedance factor for movement ,

is the probability that impeding pedestrian movement is not

blocking the subject flow; also referred to us the pedestrian

impedance factor for the movement .

Vehicular movements
Priority 2 vehicular movements LTs from major street and RTs
from minor street are not impeded by any other vehicular flow, as
they represent the highest priority movements seeking gaps.
They are impeded, however, by Rank 1 pedestrian movements.
Priority 3 vehicular movements are impeded by Priority 2
vehicular movements and Priority l and 2 pedestrian movements
seeking to use the same gaps. Priority 4 vehicular movements
are impeded by Priority 2 and 3 vehicular movements, and
Priority 1 and 2 pedestrian movements using the same gaps.
Table. 3 lists the impeding flows for each subject movement in a
four leg. Generally the rule stated the probability that impeding
vehicular movement is not blocking the subject movement is
computed as
(6)
where, is the demand flow for impeding movement , and
is the movement capacity for impeding movement vph.
Pedestrian impedance factors are computed as:

Pedestrian Movements
One of the impeding effects for all the movement is pedestrians
movement. Both approaches of Minor-street vehicle streams must
yield to pedestrian streams. Table. 3 shows that relative
hierarchy between pedestrian and vehicular streams used. A
factor accounting for pedestrian blockage is computed by Eqn. 7
on the basis of pedestrian volume, the pedestrian walking speed,
and the lane width that is:

(7)

where, is the pedestrian impedance factor for impeding

pedestrian movement , is the pedestrian flow rate, impeding

movement in peds/hr, is the lane width in m, and is the

pedestrian walking speed in m/s.
Table 3: Relative pedestrian/vehicle hierarchy
Vehicle Stream Must Yield to Impedance Factor for

  Pedestrian Stream
Pedestrians,
Determining Shared Lane Capacity
The capacities of individual streams (left turn, through and right
turn) are calculated separately. If the streams share a common
traffic lane, the capacity of the shared lane is then calculated
according to the shared lane procedure. But movement capacities
still represent an assumption that each minor street movement
operates out of an exclusive lane. Where two or three movements
share a lane its combined capacity computed as:

(8)

where, is the shared lane capacity in veh/hr, is the flow

rate, movement sharing lane with other minor street flow, and

is the movement capacity of movement sharing lane with

other minor street.

Determining control delay

Delay is a complex measure and depends on a number of
variables it is a measure of driver discomfort, frustration, fuel
consumption, increased travel time etc. Total delay is the
difference between the travel time actually experienced and the
reference travel time that would result during base conditions, in
the absence of incident, control, traffic, or geometric delay. Also,
Average control delay for any particular minor movement is a
function of the Capacity of the approach and The degree of
saturation. The control delay per vehicle for a movement in a
separate lane is given by:

(9)
where, is the average control delay per vehicle for movement

in s/veh, is the capacity of movement or shared lane in

veh/hr, is the analysis period h (15 min=0.25 h), and is the

demand flow rate, movement or shared lane in veh/hr.

Performance measures
Four measures are used to describe the performance of TWSC
intersections: control delay, delay to major street through
vehicles, queue length, and v/c ratio. The primary measure that
is used to provide an estimate of LOS is control delay. This
measure can be estimated for any movement on the minor (i.e.,
the stop-controlled) street. By summing delay estimates for
individual movements, a delay estimate for each minor street
movement and minor street approach can be achieved.

For AWSC intersections, the average control delay (in seconds per
vehicle) is used as the primary measure of performance. Control
delay is the increased time of travel for a vehicle approaching and
passing through an AWSC intersection, compared with a free flow
vehicle if it were not required to slow or stop at the intersection.
According to the performance measure of the TWSC intersection,
LOS of the minor-street left turn operates at level of service C
approaches to B.

Table 4: Level of service criteria for TWSC intersection

Level of Service Control delays(s/veh)
A 0-10

B
10-15

C
15-25

D
25-35
 E
35-50

F
50

Numerical example

Figure 7: Three legged intersection

For a three legged intersection given in figure 7 determine the
control delay and level of service for movement 7. The total
volume of both pedestrian and vehicular traffic at each movement
is given in the figure itself. Following data is also given:

 The speed of the pedestrians is 1.2m/s

 All flows contains 10% trucks
 The percentage of the grade is 0.00
 Ignore moments coming from south bound
 The analysis period is 15 min. (T=0.25)

Solution:

1. Compute the critical gap and follow up time:

1. Critical gap . From

table. 1 and table. 2 we have = 7.1 s , = 0.2,

= 0.0, = 0.0. Then at movement 7 computed as:

= 7.1 + 1.0 0.1+0.2 0.0 - 0.0 - 0.0 = 6.50 sec

2. To compute the Follow up time: From table. 1 and

table. 2 we have = 3.5 s , = 0.9. Then at

 movement 7 computed as: = 3.5

+ 0.9 0.1 = 3.59 sec.

2. Compute the conflicting flow rate:

   

   

3.

4. Determining potential capacity:

   

5.

6. Determine the impudence effect of the movement capacity

for movement 7: From the given figure movement 7 is
impeded by vehicular movement 4 and 1 and pedestrian 13
and 15.
1. Pedestrian impedance probability computed as:

 
 2.

3. Vehicular impedance probabilities are:

4.

5. Once the pedestrian and vehicular impedance is

determined, the moment capacity is computed as:

6.

7. Delay computation: The delay is Calculated by using the

formula

   

   

8.
The delay of movement 7 is 18.213 sec/veh.
9. Determine the level of service: From the computed delay
(18.213 se) in step 5 the level of service is LOS C obtained
from HCM table.

Conclusion
This chapter focuses on theoretical analysis of capacity at
uncontrolled intersections. First the gap acceptance theory and
follow time was described; including conflict volume
determination through the hierarchy of priorities for two ways
stop controlled intersection. Second, after determining the
potential capacity using the computed value and then prepare an
adjustment for this capacity. Finally, computation of the delay to
determine the level of service (LOS) of the given intersection is
also described.

References
1. Highway Capacity Manual. Transportation Research Board.
National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 2000.
2. W S Homburger. Fundamentals of traffic engineering. 2019.
12th Edition, pp 5-1 to 5-5.
3. William R McShane, Roger P Roesss, and Elena S Prassas.
Traffic Engineering. Prentice-Hall, Inc, Upper Saddle River,
New Jesery, 1998.

Acknowledgments
I wish to thank my student Mr. Birara Tekeste for his assistance
in developing the lecture note, and my staff Ms. Reeba in
typesetting the materials. I also wish to thank several of my
students and staff of NPTEL for their contribution in this lecture.

Prof. Tom V. Mathew 2014-08-05