Social Force Model-Based Safety Evaluation of Intersections in Arterials Considering the Pedestrian Yield Rule

To enhance the safety of pedestrians crossing the street, a series of new regulations regarding pedestrian yield has been proposed and widely implemented across cities. In this study, we first made some improvements to the social force model, in which pedestrian crossing at the intersection, drivers’ psychology of giving way, vehicle yield to pedestrians, vehicle yield in different directions, the influence of pedestrians crossing boundaries, and signal lamp groups on pedestrian behavior were considered. Furthermore, pedestrian crossing and vehicle yield safety models were established, based on which the comprehensive safety evaluation model of intersections in arterials was established, in which two indices—(1) the safety degree of pedestrian crossings and (2) vehicle acceleration interference—were combined with the entropy weight method. Finally, four types of intersections in arterials were studied using a simulation: the intersections between different levels of arterials, and intersections with one-time and two-times pedestrian crossings. Moreover, safety evaluation and analysis of those intersections, considering the rule of pedestrian yield, were conducted combined with the trajectory data from the VISSIM simulation. The relevant results showed that for pedestrians crossing the street, the pedestrian safety of two-time crossing is significantly higher than that of one-time crossing, and compared with the arterial, the pedestrian crossing distance of the sub-arterial is shorter, and the pedestrian perception is safer. Moreover, due to the herd psychology effect, the increase in pedestrian flow volume improves the safety perception of pedestrians at the intersection.