Pedestrian Crossings at Mid-Block Locations: A Fuzzy Logic Solution for Existing Signal Operations

The increasing number of mid-block vehicle-pedestrian crashes has led traffic engineers to consider treatments to make crosswalks safer, especially for children and seniors. One common method to resolve this problem is the installation of signalized mid-block pedestrian crossings. However, a wide variety of signalization schemes have been employed, few of which are supported by the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. Utilizing a microsimulation approach, this paper presents several common alternatives for signalizing a typical mid-block crosswalk (MBC) with varied geometries, aimed to explore how changing signalization schemes and geometries affects various measures of effectiveness from both vehicle and pedestrian perspectives. The results indicate that two-phase timing and the innovative HAWK (High intensity Activated crossWalK) treatment significantly improve vehicle operations over the one-phase timing and other options. Compared with these alternatives, PUFFIN (Pedestrian User-Friendly INterface) system is " user friendly " due to its dynamic pedestrian clearance interval, but it still does not encompass more safety and human factors in control logic, so it lacks in the adaptive ability in fulfilling opposing objectives. Fuzzy logic control (FLC) has proven effective for a complex optimization problem with multiple objectives, uncertain information, and vague decision criteria. Traffic signal timing lies in this category. To model the rage of variables employed in mid-block pedestrian crossings, a " user friendly " FLC signal is developed and evaluated against PUFFIN to quantify the potential safety and efficiency benefits. The result shows the FLC not only effectively controls the signal timing but also offers equal or better performance than PUFFIN from safety and operational perspectives. With straightforward logic and tractable parameters, the FLC finds a compromise among enhancing safety, ameliorating operations, and then lessening social cost from crashes and delays at a MBC.