Trade-offs between vehicular and pedestrian traffic using micro-simulation methods

A simple hypothetical network is analysed using the VISSIM micro-simulation model to study the effects of signal cycle timings on delay and travel time costs for both vehicles and pedestrians in various pedestrian phasing scenarios. To examine cost trade-offs between pedestrians and vehicles various multi-attribute weighting criteria are applied to different components of travel delay using relative values of time. Results show that the policy selection when considering pedestrians may differ from that when just considering vehicular traffic, which is currently standard practice. The multi-criteria analysis approach developed here makes it possible to optimise network performance and costs across all modes of travel.