Should the Diverging Diamond Interchange Always be Considered as a Diamond Interchange Form

摘要

The Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) has proven to be an ideal interchangesolution due to its safety features, low costs, and operational benefits in different turningmovement volume scenarios. Previous studies have always compared the DDI to otherinterchange forms by using the same amount of thru lanes for each interchange design.These studies used microsimulation software for their analysis and would have a limitedamount of turning movement combinations to sample. This study considered a very largesample of turning movement combinations and compared more interchangeconfigurations to determine the possibility that the DDI may have more applications thanprevious studies may have indicated. A basic form of the critical lane volume methodwas used to evaluate the different interchange configurations. Although this method isnot the most perfect method, there is reason to believe that the results are at least accurateenough to indicate that the DDI may be a viable option in many more scenarios thanpreviously thought. This study concluded that it is worthwhile for practitioners toconsider the DDI for any interchange improvement when comparing it to other diamondinterchange forms.