Avoiding Inefficient Oscillations in Intersecting Vehicle and Pedestrian Flows by a Speed Limit

Abstract

This paper studies the coupled vehicle-pedestrian delay problem, taking into account the interactions between vehicles and pedestrians. In a previous paper, we found that for a large pedestrian arrival probability, coupled inefficient oscillations of pedestrian and vehicle flows emerge when pedestrians cross the street with a small time gap to approaching cars (aggressive pedestrians), while both pedestrians and vehicles benefit, when they keep some overcritical time gap (careful pedestrians). In this paper, we take into account the fact that the crossing time of a pedestrian group increases with its size. Our simulations show that when the crossing time of the pedestrian group is considered, the situation of careful pedestrians changes qualitatively. While vehicle and pedestrian flows for a low vehicle flow rate and small pedestrian arrival probability are efficient, oscillations occur when the vehicle flow rate and/or the pedestrian arrival probability increase. We propose a variable speed limit implemented by a LED display to avoid the inefficiency of vehicle and pedestrian flows for careful pedestrians.