Provision of a rational control mode at pedestrian crosswalk

Abstract

Signalized pedestrian crosswalks on urban streets are essential for ensuring the safe crossing of the roadway by pedestrians and controlling the movement of vehicles. These crosswalks allow pedestrians to cross the roadway by the set rules, providing safety and comfort to all road users. Pedestrian safety is critical to improving mobility in cities. About 15% of traffic accidents occur at signalized crosswalks. Existing traffic signal control systems are mainly aimed at road traffic, which often results in significant delays and insufficient time for pedestrians to cross. It leads to risky behavior, such as not obeying traffic rules. Current pedestrian detection systems at signalized intersections mainly consist of pedestrian controllers called “buttons”. Limitations include the inability to notify a pedestrian that he, or she has been detected and the inability to dynamically extend crossing times if pedestrians do not cross the road in time. Intelligent transport systems play an essential role in improving mobility and safety and provide innovative methods to connect pedestrians, vehicles and infrastructure. Most of the research on smart and connected technologies focuses on vehicles, but there is a need to use these technologies to study pedestrian behavior, as pedestrians are the most vulnerable participants in the transportation system. Therefore, the transport system should take into account all pedestrians and satisfy all needs. Therefore, this article aims to provide information on improving traffic signal control system at pedestrian crosswalks to make them more pedestrian-friendly without significant disruption to traffic flow. The study was carried out by modeling a pedestrian crosswalk for different combinations of pedestrians and traffic flow. This paper presents modeling results and provides recommendations for the introduction of a rational control mode at pedestrian crosswalks.