Dynamic Crosswalk Signal Timing Optimization Model Considering Vehicle and Pedestrian Delays and Fuel Consumption Cost

Due to the development of video perception technology, obtaining the volume of pedestrians and vehicles at a crosswalk has become much easier. Based on this development, this paper proposes a dynamic crosswalk signal timing optimization model and then analyzes the effects for three different signal timing strategies. First, we propose the dynamic signal timing optimization model by involving the delays of pedestrians and vehicles, as well as the fuel consumption cost, simultaneously. In the model, we design a dynamic signal timing strategy, using the volume of past cycles to predict the present volume, and then calculate the optimal signal timing by minimizing the total cost of the system. Second, the model is applied to a crosswalk in Beijing, China, as an example, and we compare and analyze the results of three timing strategies: Dynamic signal timing, optimal fixed timing, and current fixed timing. The results show that the dynamic signal timing is more efficient during the morning peak hour in terms of decreasing the total cost. Compared to the current fixed timing result, the vehicle delay and the fuel consumption decrease, while the pedestrian delay increases in both morning peak hour and flat hour for the other two signal timing strategies.