A GIS and microsimulation-based MCDA approach for evaluation of pedestrian crossings

Pedestrian crossings are sites in which vehicles and pedestrians can crash into each other, and are very important in terms of urban traffic. Drivers and pedestrians are more likely to violate traffic regulations, and thus adversely affect traffic safety and flow, in streets that have many such crossings. Careful planning of pedestrian crossing locations provides a solution to these problems. In this study, a corridor-based analysis of such sites is performed. Twenty-four criteria that are considered to affect pedestrian crossing locations and traffic flow aredetermined. Based on these criteria, the most suitable pedestrian crossing scenario is identified using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and VlseKriterijuska Optimizacija I Komoromisno Resenje (VIKOR) from Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods are used to evaluate the pedestrian crossing locations, and PTV VISSIM is used to examine the impact of these sites on traffic. The proposed method is then applied to a case study of Erzurum, Turkey that involves determining the best pedestrian crossing scenario. The results show that the most suitable scenario is S.2. In terms of the evaluation criteria, this alternative scenario provides an improvement of up to 50 % over the current situation. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed to reveal the effect of changing the criteria weights on the evaluation process.