Adverse Effect of Red Light Violation (RLV) in Urban Signalized Intersections in Iran

Abstract

One of the frequent aspects of lawlessness at signalized intersections is red light violation (RLV). In addition to adverse effects on intersection safety, RLV can cause delay in the startup of the vehicles in the competing phase, defined as the green flow in this study. In this research, a video camera was used to collect the required data from intersections to investigate the adverse effect of RLV in the city of Esfahan, Iran. Then, by assigning a cellular network to the conflict points of the vehicles path in successive phases, the vehicles arrival times to these cells were measured and the imposed delays to the green flow were measured. The results of this study showed that the behavior of drivers in the green flow, the time passed into red interval, and the presence of an all-red interval are the prominent factors affecting the delay caused by RLV. Furthermore, in the absence of all-red intervals a delay in the range of 1–4.5 s was inflicted on the subsequent competing green phase. Results of the study also showed that the amount of delay increased substantially when a RL violator was not permitted to precede through the intersection by the green flow vehicles.