• Humanius@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    From my understanding there are two main beneftis:

    • Capacity
    • Safety

    Roundabouts work great, until the amount of traffic becomes to big. Then it actually starts causing problems.
    At that point you can put in a regular intersection with traffic lights, which actually works better than a roundabout does in high traffic environments. But you do lose out on the traffic safety benefits, with head-on collisions becoming possible again.

    A roundabout with traffic lights increases the capacity of the intersection while still reducing the risk of deadly accidents.
    It’s also a lot cheaper than upgrading to the next step, which is building an interchange.

    Signalised roundabouts are also quite prevalent in the Netherlands, and I can speak from experience that they generally work quite well if the lights are adjusted properly.

    Note: I’m just some random guy, I’m by no means an expert on the matter.
    This is just my understanding of the benefits of lighted roundabouts.