Citation

Seco AJdM. Traffic Eng. Control 1991; 32(7-8): 347-.

Affiliation

Univ of Leeds, Coimbra, Port

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, Hemming Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Unlike Great Britain, many countries have a basic priority rule which applies at all those junctions where no priority signs or markings are shown. A Portuguese T-junction where priority to the right applies was studied and its performance evaluated in terms of the ability of the priority rule to regulate it and to solve the different conflicting situations. An adaptation of basic gap acceptance methodology was used to describe the functioning of the junction. Distortions in the functioning of the junction were observed when comparisons were made with what should be expected from a theoretical point of view. Two factors were found to be particularly responsible for this problem: 'natural expectancy' and 'follow-out' type of behavior. At the end of the paper some thought is given to the evaluation of the usefulness of a priority rule of this type and to possible modifications to its basis to respond to the problems found in this study which generally correspond to those detected by other researchers in different countries.