Estimation of critical gap at small roundabout

Abstract

The gap acceptance theory is basically implied to describe the driver’s behavior in the minor stream at the entry of roundabout searching for a suitable gap at the major stream to merge. The critical gap is an important parameter in the gap acceptance theory. However, the critical gap cannot be measured directly on the field. One way to measure the critical gap is by measuring only the rejected and accepted gaps. This study attempts to determine the critical gap at small roundabout using three different methods namely Raff’s Method, Wu’s Method, and Simple Logit Method. The data is collected at a two-lane roundabout in Skudai – Johor Bahru at the morning and afternoon peak hour using video camera technology. Accepted and rejected gaps are then extracted from the recorded videotape. The accepted and rejected gaps obtained are analysed to determine the critical gap. The findings from the study reveal that the critical gap values from the three methods are almost similar, having a critical gap of 3.45s, 3.60s and 3.45s for Raff’s Method, Wu’s Method, and Simple Logit Method respectively.