Impacts of Changing from Permissive/Protected Left-Turn to Protected-Only Phasing: Case Study in the City of Tucson, Arizona

Abstract

Recent research has focused on the safety or mobility impacts of signal timing. Several studies have compared the choice between a protected-only left turn (PO) and a protected-permissive left turn (PPLT). However, few have compared both the safety and mobility impacts, and their tradeoffs. This study proposed data-driven methods to conduct a pilot study at an intersection in Tucson, Arizona. This study evaluated the impacts on vehicular mobility and multi-modal safety when changing from a PPLT to a PO. First, the daily and annual delay for the through and left-turn movements for the intersection was evaluated using a calibrated delay model and year-long 15-min traffic sensor data. Then, real-world near misses between cyclists, pedestrians, and vehicles were manually collected and analyzed using 48 h of videos. Last, both mobility and safety measures were converted into an annual cost to determine the trade-off between the before (PPLT) and the after (PO) situations. The results of this study demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed methods, providing practitioners with different options to evaluate left-turn phasing strategies effectively and efficiently.