Optimization for Pedestrian and Vehicular Delay in a Signal Network

The efficiency of an arterial network can be enhanced by optimizing the user costs incurred because of delays and other socioeconomic factors. Until recently, research mostly focused on minimizing vehicular delay to optimize user costs. Currently, no signal coordination tool exists to balance delays to both vehicles and pedestrians. A methodology that uses known techniques and available tools to identify an optimal signal coordination plan is developed. Pedestrian delay patterns are obtained from previous research. Delay data for vehicles are based on the modeling of peak-hour traffic conditions in urbanized areas of a hypothetical city. The signal optimization software Synchro (Version 3.2) was used to investigate the variations in vehicle delay with different signal coordination plans and offsets. The results reveal that the best offsets for vehicles and pedestrians are not necessarily the same. Consequently, a signal coordination plan that would benefit both should consider the total user costs of the ...