Pedestrian crossing decision during flashing green-countdown signal for urban signalized intersection

Abstract

During the signal-transition period for the signalized intersection, pedestrians will face a dilemma of whether to cross or wait. The study establishes a decision model of pedestrian-crossing based on risk-cost and time-utility during flashing green-countdown signal. First, the calculation methods of potential and direct risk in each direction of the intersection are proposed according to the traffic operation status. Then, analyze the relationship among the arrival time, remaining duration of flashing green signal and the actual crossing behavior, pedestrians are divided into adventurous, ordinary and conservative types respectively. Finally, introducing the time utility function, crossing decision models of three types pedestrians are established respectively based on comparing the risk cost and time utility. Take two signalized intersections as examples, parameters of decision models are calibrated through field investigation. Three types of models’ accuracy rates for the adventurous, ordinary and conservative pedestrians are 80%, 90% and 60% respectively, which denotes that the models can accurately predict the decision behavior of adventurous and ordinary pedestrians. Additionally, pedestrians are less sensitive to risk and more sensitive to time when they are faced with urgent time.

Keywords:

• Travel behavior
• pedestrian crossing decision
• flashing green-countdown signal
• crossing risk
• pedestrians’ classification

Author contributions

The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: study conception and design: Xueqin Long, Ya’nan Song; data collection: Meng Zhou, Huan Zhao; analysis and interpretation of results: Xueqin Long; draft manuscript preparation: Ya’nan Song, Meng Zhou, Huan Zhao. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the 111 project of Sustainable Transportation for Urban Agglomeration in Western China(No.B20035); the National key research and development program (2019YFB1600500); Science program of Shaanxi Province (2020JM-222); Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, CHD (300102210204).