Town of Roundabouts

Shah Alam can be called as Town of Roundabouts. It is simply because Shah Alam has 18 roundabouts connecting its arteries. The roundabouts are spread throughout the city, connecting major road arteries from Section 1 to 25.

They are Bulatan Damai (Section 1,7), Mestika (junction Section 3,4,6,7), Sejahtera (Section 15), Setia Jasa (bordering Section 4,5,10), Selangor (Section 15), Kemajuan (Section 16), Jubli Perak (Section 18,19,23 and 24), Budiman (Section 25), Stadium (Section 13), Bistari (Section 1,2,3), Permai (Section 2,3,4,14), Darul Ehsan (from the Federal Highway heading to city centre, (Section 14, 15), Perusahaan (bordering Section 15 and 16), Andalas (Section 17, 18 and 24), Melawati (above Federal Highway towards Istana Kayangan), Kayangan (Section 11, 12,13), Megawati (Section 20,21,22,23) and Aman (Section 25).

Bulatan Permai

They differ in sizes and are designed to accommodate local traffic. The biggest are the Bulatan Kayangan, located near Istana Kayangan or the Bulatan Setia Jasa near the state mosque while smaller ones include the roundabout near the Wisma MBSA and the Selangor Umno building.

In its early stages in the 1970s, traffic lights were unheard off in Shah Alam and roundabouts were seen as the best solution for traffic dispersal in the planned township.

At the same time, signal systems were expensive to install and maintain and could result in an expensive energy bill, as the signals are required to operate continuously.

Roundabouts reduce waiting periods and maximise the number of vehicles using the junctions however, at the same time, roundabouts are only a temporary measure of traffic dispersal at junctions, as they do not work well in areas with high traffic volume.

The roundabouts were no longer suitable if motorists had to wait more than 20 miniutes, which indicated a high traffic volume. In this case the alternative traffic dispersal methods should be used. These included replacing the roundabouts with traffic lights or, in some cases, with flyovers.

Although installing traffic lights and constructing flyovers involve high costs, they provide solutions to traffic congestion if the roundabouts were deemed unsuitable.

As a result Bulatan Kayangan has a traffic light system to resolve this issue.
The Bulatan Selangor, Setia Jasa and Megawati have flyovers which allow traffic to bypass the roundabouts.

A well-designed roundabout requires motorists to slow down when negotiating the roadway. Because of this, roundabouts can serve as a method to alert road users that they are transitioning from one road environment to another.
The roundabouts usually did not use traffic signals to control the entry and exit and did not require a constant power supply.

This means that a roundabout can continue to function during power failures.
Also roundabouts do not require the installation or maintenance of the traffic detection devices associated with traffic signals.