The development of digital computer simulation models representing vehicle interactions at highway intersections controlled by two- and four-way stop control is described. Driver actions at the stop lines are made on the basis of gap acceptance, and the appropriate distribution of gap acceptance may be selected on the basis of site experience. Demand flows on the approach highways may also be selectedaccording to traffic flow conditions that vary from a uniform flow to a peak-hour flow with pronounced variation between maximum and minimum flow levels. Output from the simulation models is in the form of queue lengths and average and total delays. Observations of lag and gap acceptance and vehicle headway distributions are used in the simulation models to evaluate the relative advantages of two- and four-way stop control in terms of average delay. For the traffic flow conditions simulated, values of total practical intersection capacity occurred when the total inflow was approximately 1, 400 veh/hr for a two-way stop intersection with one-lane approaches and 1, 650 veh/hr for a four-way stop intersection with one-lane approaches. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1320, Freeway operations, highway capacity, and traffic flow 1991.
Abstract