yue zhao graduate research assistant center for advanced transportation education and research

Center for Advanced Transportation Education and ResearchUniversity of Nevada, Reno

Student PaperYue Zhao

Exploration of Pedestrian Gap Acceptance at Two-Way Stop-Controlled Intersections using

Simulation

Yue ZhaoGraduate Research Assistant

Center for Advanced Transportation Education and Research

Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering

University of Nevada, Reno

Email: [email protected]

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Outline

Background

Simulation Model

Data Analysis

Conclusions

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3

Background

TWSC intersection: high degree of discretion to individual drivers and pedestrians in how they react to conflict traffic streams.

Pedestrian behavior plays an important role in analyzing the operations of two-way stop-controlled intersections: pedestrian blockage.

• Major-street vehicles: stop

• Minor-street vehicles: lose the opportunity to seek gaps



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Background

Pedestrian gap acceptance: time between the head of consecutive vehicle

Arrive-Wait-Service-Depart



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Background

Methodology

• Simulation models: Vissim and Corsim micro-simulation environment.

Objectives:

• Analyzing and comparing diverse pedestrian gap acceptance behaviors at TWSC locations.

• Measure the acceptable gap and rejected gap thresholds.



381ft

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Model Construction

Data Collection• Typical TWSC intersection; Traffic and pedestrian volumes on each

approach during peak hour(4-5pm) were counted manually.

4:00-5:00 pm W 1ST STREET & Ralston Street

Traffic VolumeNBL NBT NBR SBL SBT SBR EBL EBT EBR WBL WBT WBR

56 23 44 78 59 12 93 120 77 112 99 43

PedestrianMA-WB MA-SB MI-NB MI-SB

18 8 12 22

4:00-5:00 pm W 1ST STREET & Bell Street

Traffic VolumeNBL NBT NBR SBL SBT SBR EBL EBT EBR WBL WBT WBR

22 23 32 56 22 66 78 106 34 120 145 98

PedestrianMA-WB MA-SB MI-NB MI-SB

15 21 6 5



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Model Construction

Model Coding

• VISSIM: defines pedestrians as vehicles to extract gap acceptance etc. data.

• CORSIM(NETSIM & FRESIM): light, moderate, and heavy pedestrians.

Vehicle and pedestrian demands;

Basic geometric properties of the study intersections;

Pedestrian behavior attributes.



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Model Construction

Model Calibration• Pedestrian and vehicle flows, speeds, travel time reflect those observed

data in the field.



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Analysis

Delay Analysis• Pedestrian delay: relatively small



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Accepted and Rejected Gap

Accepted gap: [4, 12]Rejected gap: [0, 5.5]Approximately 2 seconds overlap: [3, 5]



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Analysis

Accepted Gap and Rejected Gap• Near-side and far-side accepted and rejected gap.

• Shorter far-side gaps are accepted in both models.• Near-gap and far-gap are recorded simultaneously when pedestrians

make the decision to cross.

• Potential dangerous behavior: some pedestrians pay little attention to the far-side incoming vehicles.



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Analysis

Traffic and Pedestrian Volume

• Conflicting traffic volume increases larger gaps accepted.

• Pedestrian volume increases shorter gaps accepted.



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Conclusions

Pedestrians are in the similar circumstances with vehicles on minor-street.

Pedestrian gap acceptance is from 4 to 12 seconds, and rejected gaps are around 0 to 5.5 seconds.

• Shorter far-side gaps are accepted.

• 2 seconds overlap between accepted and rejected gaps.

VISSIM provides more detailed coding platform and information.



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THANKS FOR YOUR TIME

yue zhao graduate research assistant center for advanced transportation education and research

Documents

pedestrian behavior

pedestrian blockage

pedestrian travel

pedestrian volumes

pedestrian crossing

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