A presentation on

Presented By:
Dr. Abdullah Ahmad
Assistant Professor

Department of Civil Engineering, NIT Srinagar

 Roundabout is a channelized intersection where traffic moves
around a central island, clockwise for left-side driving and anti
clockwise for right-side driving.

 In the United States, the circular intersections are classified into

three categories such as rotaries, traffic circles and roundabouts
(FHWA, 2000).

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 Rotaries
 It is an old-style circular intersections common in the United
States prior to 1960s.
 Characterized by a large diameter, often in excess of 100 m.
 Travel speeds within the circulatory roadway that exceed 50 km/h.
Traffic circles
 Built at the intersections of local streets for reasons of traffic
calming and/or aesthetics.
 Intersection approaches may be uncontrolled or stop-controlled.
 They do not typically include raised channelization to guide the
approaching driver onto the circulatory roadway.
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Roundabouts
 Circular intersections with specific design and traffic control
features.

 Features include yield control of all entering traffic, channelized

approaches, and appropriate geometric curvature.

 These features ensure that travel speeds on the circulatory

roadway are typically less than 50 km/h.

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Roundabout and Rotary (NCHRP, 2010)

Roundabout

Rotary 5
32 conflict points 8 conflict points

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 Geometric design elements of a roundabout

Central Island

Entry
Inscribed Circle Diameter
width
Approach
width Exit radius
Splitter
Island

Yield Line
Departure
width Exit width Entry radius

Circulating roadway Apron

width
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» Diverging: Traffic operation when the vehicles moving in one
direction is separated into different streams.

» Merging: Process of joining the traffic coming from different

approaches and going to a common destination into a single
stream.

» Weaving: Combined movement of both merging and diverging

movements in the same direction
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 Design elements of a rotary intersection

• Design speed
• Entry and Exit Radius
• Width of the rotary
• Weaving length
Design speed:

• Normal practice is to keep the

design speed as-
• 30 kmph for urban areas and
• 40 kmph for rural areas

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Entry Radius:

» For rural design, entry radius of about 20-25m

» For urban design, entry radius of about 15-20m is suitable.

Exit Radius:

» Exit radius should be higher than radius of rotary island

» General practice is to keep exit radius as 1.5 to 2 times

the entry radius.

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 Island Radius
• It is governed by the rotary design speed and theoretically should
be equal to the radius at entry.
• Central island radius is kept slightly higher than that of the curve at
entry i.e. 1.3 times that of the entry curve is adequate for all
practical purpose.

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 IRC suggests that a two lane road of 7 m width should be kept as 7 m
for urban roads and 6.5 m for rural roads.
 Further, a 3-lane road of 10.5 m is to be reduced to 7.5 m and 7.0 m for
urban roads and rural roads, respectively.

Rural Roads

Urban Roads
» The width of weaving section should be higher than the
width at entry and exit. The weaving width is given as,

(𝒆𝟏 +𝒆𝟐 )
𝑾𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 = { } + 3.5m
𝟐

Where 𝑒1 = width of carriageway at the entry ,

𝑒2 = width of the carriageway at exit

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Determines how smoothly the traffic can merge and diverge.

» The ratio of weaving length to the weaving with i.e. 4:1 is

regarded as the minimum value suggested by IRC.

» Very large weaving length is also dangerous, as it may

encourage over-speeding.

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 IRC-65 (1976) ‘Recommendation Practice for Traffic Rotaries’ used the above-
mentioned concept of weaving length and weaving section. The weaving length
determines the case with which the vehicles can maneuver through the weaving
section and thus determines the capacity of the rotary.

 e  p 
280* w 1+ 1- 
Qp =  w  3 
w
1+
l
Qp = practical capacity of the weaving section of the rotary (pcu/h)

w = width of weaving section in meters (within the range of 6-18 m)

e1 + e2
w= + 3.5
2

e1 + e2
e= = average entry with (m) (e/w to be within a range of 0.4 to 1)
2
e1 = entry width (m)
e2 = width of non-weaving section (m)

l = length of the weaving section between the ends of channeling islands (m) (w/l to be within the range of 0.12 to 0.4)
b+c
p= = proportion of weaving traffic (range of p being 0.4 to 1) 16
a +b+c+d
» The capacity of rotary is determined by the capacity of each
weaving section. IRC proposed the following empirical
formula to find the capacity of the weaving section.

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 Proportion of weaving traffic

Figure shows four types of movements at a weaving section, a and

dare the non-weaving traffic and band c are the weaving traffic.
Therefore, proportion of weaving traffic to the non-
weaving traffic,

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1. Weaving width at the rotary is in between 6 and 18 meters.
2. The ratio of average width of the carriage way at entry and exit
to the weaving width is in the range of 0.4 to 1.
3. The ratio of weaving width to weaving length of the roundabout
is in between 0.12 and 0.4.
4. The proportion of weaving traffic to non-weaving traffic in the
rotary is in the range of o.4 and 1.
5. The weaving length available at the intersection is in
between 18 and 90 m.
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Width of approach for a rotary intersection is 12m. The
entry and exit width of the rotary is 10m. Find
capacity of the rotary.

Approaches Left Turning Straight Traffic Right Turning

North 408 650 375

South 420 350 370
East 250 500 600
West 400 505 510

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Approaches Left Turning Straight Traffic Right Turning

North 408 650 375

South 420 350 370
East 250 500 600
West 400 505 510

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1. Weaving width is calculated as,
[(𝑒1 +𝑒2 )
W=[ ] + 3:5 = 13.5 m
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2. Weaving length is calculated as L=4*W= 54 m
3. The proportion of weaving traffic to the non-weaving traffic in
all the four approaches is found out first.
Let the proportion of weaving traffic to the non-weaving traffic:
in West-North direction be denoted as pWN,
in North-East direction as pNE,
in the East-South direction as pES,
in the South-West direction as pSW.
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Then using equation,
PES=(510+650+500+600)/(510+650+500+600+250+375)
=2260/2885 =0.783
PWN=(505+510+350+600/505+510+350+600+400+370)
=1965/2735 = 0.718
PNE=(650+375+505+370/650+375+505+370+510+408)
=1900/2818 = 0.674
PSW=(350+370+500+375350+370+500+375+420+600)
=1595/2615 = 0.6099
Thus, the proportion of weaving traffic to non-weaving traffic is highest in
the East-South direction.
Therefore, the capacity of the rotary will be capacity of
this weaving section. From the equation,

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» Traffic rotaries reduce the complexity of crossing traffic by
forcing them into weaving operations.

» The shape and size of the rotary are determined by the traffic
volume and share of turning movements.

» Capacity assessment of a rotary is done by analyzing the

section having the greatest proportion of weaving traffic.