Digital Twin for Pedestrian Safety Warning at a Single Urban Traffic Intersection

Ensuring the safety of Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) at intersections is crucial to enhancing urban traffic systems. This paper introduces a novel intelligent warning system specifically designed to increase the safety of VRUs crossing intersections. The proposed system leverages the COSMOS testbed to obtain real time vehicle information and employs Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) as a standards-based messaging protocol for device communication and data transmission and utilizes a transformer model and Time To Collision (TTC) method to predict the collision. To validate the effectiveness and reliability of our intelligent alert system, we conducted comprehensive tests using the CARLA simulator, incorporating hardware in the loop simulation approach. The results demonstrate the potential for increased situational awareness and reduced risk factors associated with VRUs at intersections. Our work supports the integration of this intelligent alert system as a viable solution for reducing accidents and enhancing the overall safety of urban intersections in real time.