EXERCISE 6

GAP ACCEPTANCE AND PRIORITY JUNCTION

CE 5203 TRAFFIC FLOW AND CONTROL

ADITYA NUGROHO
HT083276E

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

2010
 Department of Civil Engineering
CE 5203 Traffic Flow and Control

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Gap acceptance and rejection are important parameters in determining the capacity of stop -
sign intersections. Gaps are either accepted or rejected depending on a number of factors
including headways, volume of traffic, drivers' characteristics etc. In this Exercise 6 the
objectives are:
 Apply gap acceptance analysis
 Predict junction capacity at Jalan Lempeng

2.0 GAP ACCEPTANCE AND JUNCTION CAPACITY METHOD

2.1 Data collection

A gap can be defined as the time interval between the passage of two successive vehicles on
the major road at a priority intersection. Gap acceptance is the decision of a side-street (minor
road) driver to use a gap created in a major road traffic to merge or maneuver safely with the
major road traffic. A gap may be accepted if it is large enough or rejected if it is too small.

Gaps have been measured using video camera and and data has been extracted using
appropriate MultiTimer software. In this Exercise 6, several variables should be considered
before do the measuring of gaps acceptance.
 A reference line- a certain line should be set as a reference to count vehicles.
 Traffic volume major road- Traffic volume of major road were recorded in 30
minutes, to predict junction capacity.
 Gaps - This was done manually by the use of multimer to time individual vehicles as
they pass the junction from the minor road. The gaps accepted or rejected by the minor
road vehicles were observed and noted also. The time headway of the vehicles on the
minor road was simultaneously recorded.
 Lags – Differently from gap, this time measurement is between two vehicles on
different road. In here, lag is defined as the time it takes a vehicle in the majorroad to
reach the front bumper of the vehicle in the minor road.
 Vehicles type- Although it is important to measure the gap acceptance by vehicles
composition where heavy vehicles may affect the gaps acceptance function. However,
to simplify our exercise, we do not consider vehicle type.

Therefore a gap is first sought at the conflict point at time t 0. Also if vehicles in the priority
stream arrive at the conflict point at times t1, t2, t3,...., then

lag  t1  t0
gap  ti 1  ti (1)
i  1, 2,3,...

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CE 5203 Traffic Flow and Control

2.2 Gaps acceptance and capacity junction measurement

Based on characteristic of Jln Lempeng junction it is assumed that gap models for the drivers
on the major road are not affected by drivers on the minor road. It is also observed that in this
study site, random arrivals of vehicles in main road. Therefore, in order to get generally
applicable results of gap acceptance models and junction capacity, it is necessary to measured
by following steps.
 Finding single estimators of critical gap
 Approximate probability distribution of gap
 Calculate junction capacity (random arrivals)

Four single estimators of critical gap were selected for a more detailed analysis:
 Median accepted gap (50th percentile of Tai)
 c : F (Ta   c )  F (Ta   c )
 Median critical lag
 c : Fa (Ta   c )  Fr (Ta   c )
 Mean critical gap (lag)
1 m
c :  (Tr  Ta )i
2m i 1
where, Tr  max T0 , T1 , T2 , T3 ,.., Tn 1 n  0
Ta  Tn
 Weighted mean critical lag
m

 (T r  Ta )i / (Tr  Ta )i
c : i 1
m
21/ (Tr  Ta )i
i 1

3.0 ANALYSIS OF GAPS ACCEPTANCE AND REJECTION

The gaps data were collected from a Jln Lempeng junction. A video camera was mounted on
the roadside, opposite to a reference point, to continuously capture the traffic across this
reference point. The collection of data was done during 30 minutes in morning peak hours.
After completing data collection a simplified table is used to calculate critical gaps. Table 1 is
example of a simplified table of gap acceptance/rejection patterns for 30 vehicles in the study.

Table 1 Example of gap acceptance/rejection patterns

No of Accepted Rejected
vehicle (s) (s) (s) (s) (s) (s) (s)
1 1.06 3.61 1.12
2 21
3 11.9
4 3.79

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5 13.51 3.18 1.45

6 11.25
7 24.708 1.592
8 21.154 1.155
9 13.556
10 15.35
11 13.98
12 4.69 4.35 2.43 1.03
13 14.19 3.09 2.19
14 5.632 1.513 1.233
15 14.258 1.638

If one were to use only the data in Table 1, not all 15 accepted gaps could be used. To
simplified the analysis, accepted gaps greater than 20s were discarded. Also, to avoid bias the
first rejected gap for each vehicles in the minor stream is the one used to determine the critical
gap. The characteristic of the study site of Jln Lempeng junction is Left Turn from the Minor
Road. Gap acceptance studies for this type of maneuver are the most difficult to develop. Left
turn maneuvers have the lowest priority in junction. Therefore, gap acceptance studies for this
type of maneuver should consider gaps available in traffic main stream.

Based on field data observation, it is found that in this juntion has the large gap between
acceptance and rejection of gaps, therefore choice of appropriate class interval for grouping
the data is a vital step in the analysis. In order to simplify our exercise, the class intervals of
2s were considered. To develop the gap acceptance graph, all accepted and rejected gaps are
tabulated in Table 2.

Table 2 Gap acceptance and rejection patterns

Sec Frequency CFAG Frequency CFRG

0-2 1 1 44 99
2-4 4 5 39 55
4-6 15 20 14 16
6-8 13 33 0 2
8-10 7 40 1 2
10-12 13 53 1 1
12-14 8 61 0 0
14-16 9 70 0 0
16-18 5 75 0 0
18-20 3 78 0 0
Total 78 99
* By considering headway distribution in Exercise 2 therefore the traffic flow per hour/lane
can be derived, and the outcome of flow is 837 vehicles.
* The move up time of vehicle were calculated for those case that more than 2 vehicles
merging in one lag or gap. In average move up time of vehicles is 1.54sec

Critical gap are those gaps that 50% of people will accept or the median of gap acceptance
distribution. Following figure and result represents of single estimator of critical gaps.

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 Department of Civil Engineering
CE 5203 Traffic Flow and Control

Median accepted gap

1,0

Cu m u l at ive accept ed ga p
0,9
0,8
0,7
0,6
0,5
0,4
0,3
0,2
0,1
0,0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

Figure 1 Median accepted gap of left turn maneuver

Median critical lag

100
90
Cu m u l at ive nu m b e r

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

Figure 2 Median critical lag of left turn maneuver

Based on Figure 1 driver majority (50%) will accept gaps in the range 9.8 sec or greater.
When accumulated gaps are plotted, the critical lag is the point where both graphs intersect
each other. From Figure 2 critical lag are obtained is 5.9 second. With large different between
critical lag and critical accepted gap value it shows that there are exist many longer rejected
lags as the number of accepted gaps. Summary of all single estimators are presented in Table
3 below.

Table 3 Four single estimators of critical gap

Estimators c Value
Median accepted gap 9.8 sec
Median critical lag 5.9 sec
Mean critical gap (lag) 6.68 sec
Weighted mean critical lag 5.98 sec
*Detail calculation of mean and weighted critical lag in appendix

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 Department of Civil Engineering
CE 5203 Traffic Flow and Control

The gap parameters can be estimated by plotting the probability values against the mid-point
class values on a normally (or log-normally) the ratio of the number of accepted gaps to total
number of gaps. Following figures 4 and 5 represent the result of plotting the gaps data. As
can bee seen the gaps data do not follow normal distribution and log normal, the gaps
distribution is scattered. Therefore the probit analysis could not perform for next analysis to
estimate critical gap parameters.

2
No r ma l devi at e

-1

-2
0 1,5 3 4,5 6 7,5 9 10,5 12 13,5 15
Gap time (s)

Figure 3 Normal distribution of gaps data

2
No r ma l devi at e

-1

-2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Log Gap time (s)

Figure 4 Log Normal distribution of gaps data

4.0 JUNCTION CAPACITY

Unsignalized junction capacity at Jln Lempeng are measured by deterministic and

probabilistic approaches. This procedure is based on critical gap acceptance and follow up
times of vehicles from the minor road. Thus it is necessary before derived minor road
capacity, we need to modeling gap acceptance behavior. It is assumed that the drivers from

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minor road follow consistent behavior model where person seeking gaps has a characteristics
constant critical gap.

By apply the deterministic approach therefore gap acceptance function will be,

0, T   c
 (T )  
1, T   c

Probabilistic approaches of gap acceptance function is using shifted exponential distribution.

Shifted exponential is used where gaps accepted is plotted following shifted exponential
(appendix). Thus the gap acceptance will be,

0, T   min

 (T )   
T  min

 1  e   min
,T   c

From the field data  min is 1.46 second and  is 7.09

Assuming that the headway distribution of main stream flow following negative exponential
distribution and the vehicles randomly arrivals therefore the junction capacity can be
measured by following equations.



Qm  qM  (i  1) e  ( c i ') qM  e  ( c [ i 1] ') qM
i 0

q M e  qM  c

1  c  qM  '

By using above equations of the deterministic and probabilistic of gap acceptance function,
the junction capacity of Jln Lempeng are 724 veh/hour and 752 veh/hour, respectively.

5.0 CONCLUSION

The data in this study are from Clementi Avenue 6 and Jln Lempeng. Such factors geometric
design of roads, flows, environment, drivers behavior (main important factors in gap
acceptance model) and proportion of heavy vehicles, may have an effect on the gaps
acceptance. and critical gap These factors would reduce or increase the actual junction
capacity from the basic capacity.

However a yellow box at Jln Lempeng junction could use as a traffic control measure to
prevent gridlock at junctions and vehicles may not enter the area so marked unless their exit
from the junction is clear (to await a gap in the oncoming traffic flow). It has been shown that
the methods in the exercise of gap acceptance should be further extend to analyse more
accurately of the results. Such the method to analysed the drivers behavior, clear sight
distance, and conflict technique which is based on pragmatically simplified concept where

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CE 5203 Traffic Flow and Control

interaction and impact between flows at junction is brought through mathematically

formulated by empirical approach.

6.0 REFERENCES

A Policy on Geometric Design of Highway and Streets 2001, 4th Ed. (AASHTO)
Highway Capacity Manual. 2000. Special Report 209, 4th Ed., TRB, National Research
Council, Washington, D.C.,
Traffic Monitoring Guide, 3rd Ed. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
Traffic Flow Theory A State-of-the-Art Report (2001). Committee on Traffic Flow Theory
and Characteristics (AHB45). TRB, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.,

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Appendix I

Shifted Exponent Distribution

0,2 1,2

0,18
1
0,16

Di stribut ion function

0,14
0,8
Pr ob. densi ty

0,12

0,1 0,6

0,08
0,4
0,06

0,04
0,2
0,02

0 0
0 5 10 15 20

Prob. density Distribution function

Appendix II

Accepted MaxRej Mean Wt Wt Mean

1.06 3.61 2.34 0.78 1.83
13.51 3.18 8.35 13.20 110.12
24.71 1.59 13.15 24.08 316.65
21.15 1.16 11.15 20.29 226.30
4.69 4.35 4.52 4.46 20.16
14.19 3.09 8.64 13.87 119.81
5.63 1.51 3.57 4.97 17.76
14.26 1.64 7.95 13.65 108.47
22.40 3.76 13.08 22.14 289.55
16.63 1.14 8.89 15.75 139.97
7.27 3.76 5.52 7.00 38.63
5.24 4.12 4.68 5.00 23.39
11.92 5.38 8.65 11.73 101.50
14.03 4.56 9.29 13.81 128.25
6.96 1.51 4.24 6.30 26.66
9.59 3.46 6.53 9.30 60.73
7.11 5.34 6.22 6.93 43.10
17.05 2.34 9.70 16.62 161.17
9.05 1.84 5.44 8.50 46.30
11.62 1.40 6.51 10.91 71.06
9.77 1.58 5.67 9.13 51.78
10.33 1.58 5.95 9.69 57.66
8.97 8.49 8.73 8.85 77.26
4.29 4.91 4.60 4.09 18.81
5.49 4.06 4.77 5.25 25.04
6.13 2.89 4.51 5.78 26.08
11.33 3.56 7.44 11.04 82.18

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5.29 2.84 4.06 4.94 20.06

17.41 2.36 9.88 16.99 167.91
6.82 2.94 4.88 6.48 31.61
11.00 4.55 7.78 10.78 83.86
12.21 5.78 9.00 12.04 108.32
7.21 5.79 6.50 7.03 45.70
16.79 2.45 9.62 16.38 157.51
15.63 3.87 9.75 15.37 149.88
8.50 3.53 6.02 8.22 49.43
3.40 9.69 6.54 3.30 21.58
11.73 3.85 7.79 11.47 89.39
10.28 8.07 9.17 10.15 93.09
16.30 10.02 13.16 16.20 213.20
12.47 2.34 7.40 12.04 89.11
4.78 1.03 2.91 3.81 11.07
4.01 2.92 3.46 3.67 12.70
5.02 3.60 4.31 4.75 20.47
4.60 3.09 3.84 4.28 16.44
6.94 4.37 5.66 6.71 37.97
6.22 1.28 3.75 5.44 20.42
6.38 4.34 5.36 6.15 32.97
5.57 2.04 3.81 5.08 19.34
3.37 3.54 3.45 3.09 10.66
14.12 4.88 9.50 13.91 132.18
5.45 1.12 3.28 4.55 14.96
10.44 1.56 6.00 9.79 58.75
4.92 0.50 2.71 2.92 7.92
11.35 4.88 8.11 11.14 90.41
6.69 519.81 3476

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