In urban areas roundabouts are becoming more frequently used such as in Shah Alam due to expected less delay where vehicles do not have to stop. However, due to drivers driving ‘habit’ creates problems such as delays, safety which arises because of intolerable and impatient driving character while selection and changing lane. This paper highlighted and revealed the lane changing process at the entry and length of weaving section in roundabout and the problems encountered during the manoeuvrability. In this study, conventional roundabout traffic flow situation is being modelled using Paramics. Driver driving behaviour was measured through indirect parameters such as speed, gap and others. The findings show that the performance (e.g. level of service - LOS) of the roundabout is indirectly influence by the drivers driving ‘habit’ through gap, speed, aggressiveness and awareness besides geometric design and other engineering factors. Better understanding of driver lane changing process in relation to traffic flow will enable better design of roundabout. The study suggested that a study of traffic flow in Malaysian roundabouts need further investigation in order to close this knowledge gap, and to enable development of models to support the design and traffic operation processes at roundabout. (Author/publisher)
Abstract