Innovative detector layout for automated traffic turning volume counting

Because of many advantages, loop detectors are the most common practice for obtaining data to control intersections. However, they have some drawbacks, including the fact that multiple detectors are usually required to monitor a location. The current practice in many cities is to install four consecutive loop detectors per lane, or two at the stop bar and one as an advanced detector. In some cities, there are also departure detectors. All these configurations have some practical problems and do not produce accurate counts especially in shared lanes. In this paper, a new placement configuration for departure detectors is proposed and named the mid‐intersection detector (MID). In this configuration, departure detectors are moved back to the middle of the intersection in such a way that they can be activated by more than one movement at different times. In some cases, departure detectors lack equations for calculating turning movements, a problem solved by MIDs because each movement passes more detectors along its path (without increasing the number of loops), and therefore they can produce more accurate and reliable data for obtaining turning movement counts. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.