Resumen
To assess the safety impact of auxiliary lanes at downstream locations of U-turns, the Traffic Conflict Technique (TCT) was used. On the basis of the installed components at those locations, four types of U-turns were identified: those without any auxiliary lane, those with an acceleration lane, those with outer widening, and those with both an acceleration lane and outer widening. To give relative importance to high severity conflicts, weighting coefficients were used on the basis of the Czech TCT. The Severity Conflict Rate (SCR) was assessed by applying weighing coefficients to the observed conflicts related to the traffic volumes. According to the results, a comparatively highest value of SCR and a lowest level of road safety occurs if a location has no auxiliary lane. The highest level of road safety occurs if the layout includes a single component, either an acceleration lane or outer widening. If there are two components at the downstream zone, this causes larger area for conflict interactions and results in moderate level of road safety.