Optimizing traffic signal control for continuous‐flow intersections: Benchmarking against a state‐of‐practice model

Continuous-flow intersections (CFI), also known as displaced left-turn (DLT) intersections, aim to improve the efficiency and safety of traffic junctions. A CFI introduces additional cross-over intersections upstream of the main intersection to split the left-turn flow from the through movement before it arrives at the main intersection which decreases the number of conflict points between left-turn and through movements. This study develops and examine a two-step optimization model for CFI traffic signal control design and demonstrates its performance across more than 300 different travel demand scenarios. The proposed model is compared against a state-of-practice CFI signal control model as a benchmark. Microsimulation results suggest that the proposed model reduces average delay by 17% and average queue length by 32% for a full CFI compared with the benchmark signal control model.