Effects of vehicle–pedestrian interaction and speed limit on traffic performance of intersections

•Studied pedestrian–vehicle interaction and intersection rules.•Discovered pedestrian interference on traffic efficiency, energy consumption and safety.•Studied effects of road speed limit, arrival rates on traffic performance.•Studied the relationship between traffic safety and efficiency.

The intersection model consisting of vehicle model, pedestrian model, pedestrian–vehicle interaction model and intersection rules has been presented in this paper. The well-established vehicle and pedestrian movement models in the literature are combined and applied to the intersection system with additional rules. Extensive numerical simulations with different scenarios are carried out. The effects of road speed limit, vehicle arrival rate, pedestrian regularity rate and vehicle rational rate on the intersection performance are quantitatively investigated. Three measures of the traffic performance are studied including transportation efficiency, energy economy and traffic safety. We have found that the energy economy can be achieved with the high transportation efficiency, and that the traffic safety is in conflict with the efficiency. Furthermore, we have found that the pedestrian interference makes the intersection performance worse, resulting in lower transportation efficiency, more energy consumptions and higher safety risk.