Congestion and Performance Evaluation of Roundabouts: Case Study at Bhubaneswar City; India

Abstract

Traffic congestion is one of the main problems that are being faced by developed and developing countries around the world including India. Traffic jam has flourished as a common problem in medium and large cities mainly at junctions when traffic volume is at peak. Present study mainly focuses on assessing the traffic jam by taking the road section from Master Canteen (Station square) to Rajmahal Square and the station square roundabout as a case study. The performance of the roundabouts was evaluated using SIDRA INTERSECTION software as a tool. Also so as to ascertain the extent of congestion it's important to quantify the traffic jam, and daily mobility. The causes of traffic congestion and variation of mobility during different hours of a day have been calculated. The result showed that both roundabouts are performing below the satisfactory level in terms of capacity and delay performance measures. High demand flow on one or two approaches, high circulating flows, and therefore the existence of heavy vehicles during the height periods contributed to the poor performance of the roundabouts. Using this road within the morning peak hours causes a traveler to spend 13.1 min/ km of delay on the average and will reserve a maximum of 14 times the off-peak time period to succeed in on time.