Several unconventional designs have been suggested to enhance traffic operation and safety at intersections. However, the operational benefits of implementing some of them are achieved only under certain traffic conditions. For instance, the operational performance of the restricted crossing U-turn (RCUT) intersection design manifests only under highly unbalanced traffic conditions. The RCUT intersection outperforms conventional intersections that are subjected to high major traffic and light minor traffic volumes, while its operational performance fades at intersections with moderate to heavy minor road traffic. In this technical paper, a new innovative four-leg intersection design has been proposed to replace the RCUT intersection under moderate and heavy minor road traffic volumes. The new intersection design which has been named the “Shifting Movements” (SM) intersection has a low number of conflict-points compared with conventional intersections, but similar to the RCUT intersection. Therefore, similar safety benefits are expected to be achieved by the implementation of the SM intersection. Operational evaluations and comparisons between conventional, RCUT, and SM intersections have been conducted in the microscopic simulation environment. Different traffic volume levels and left-turn proportions have been assumed to represent the peak hour with moderate to high left-turn traffic. The results indicate that the SM intersection design significantly outperforms conventional and RCUT intersections that are subjected to high traffic volumes in average control delay and throughput.

已经提出了几种非常规设计，以提高交叉路口的交通运营和安全性。然而，只有在特定的交通条件下才能实现其中一些实施的运营效益。例如，限制交叉 U 形转弯 (RCUT) 交叉口设计的运行性能仅在高度不平衡的交通条件下表现出来。RCUT 交叉路口的性能优于主要交通量大和次要交通量较小的传统交叉路口，而其运行性能在中度至重度次要道路交通的交叉路口会有所下降。在本技术论文中，提出了一种新的创新四腿交叉口设计，以取代中等和重度小道路交通量下的 RCUT 交叉口。与传统交叉路口相比，新的交叉路口设计被命名为“移动运动”（SM）交叉路口，冲突点数量较少，但与 RCUT 交叉路口相似。因此，SM 交叉口的实施有望实现类似的安全效益。常规、RCUT 和 SM 交叉口之间的操作评估和比较已在微观模拟环境中进行。已假设不同的交通量水平和左转比例代表具有中度至高左转交通的高峰时段。结果表明，SM 交叉口设计在平均控制延迟和吞吐量方面明显优于传统交叉口和受高交通量影响的 RCUT 交叉口。