Evolution mechanism of conflict between pedestrian and vehicle based on evolutionary game theory

When pedestrian and vehicle are in conflict, they will pass at a certain probability after they have made a simple judgment respectively. According to the actual situation of the conflict between pedestrian and vehicle, the concept of basic payoff, conflict loss, waiting loss and mutual avoiding loss are put forward. A game matrix of the conflict between pedestrian and vehicle is consequently established. Then the evolutionary analysis paradigm is introduced, and the dynamic model of the conflict evolution between pedestrian and vehicle is established. After that, the position and stability of the equilibrium point and the evolution mechanism of the system in different traffic situations are analyzed in detail. It is found that the relative size between conflict loss and waiting loss of pedestrian and vehicle are different, corresponding to different evolution directions of the system. The possible evolutionary directions include “vehicles first”, “pedestrians first”, “neither vehicles nor pedestrians goes first”, “vehicles and pedestrians do not yield to each other”. In addition, in this paper, we define the traffic concept of opportunity loss, and analyze the sensitivity of the system to the mutual avoiding loss and the opportunity loss of pedestrian and vehicle. It is found that the increasing of the mutually avoiding loss of pedestrian or vehicle has a positive effect on improving the probability of each passing conflict zone, but it has a negative effect on reducing the probability of each passing conflict zone. On the other hand, the effect of opportunity loss is just the opposite to the mutual avoiding loss. The dynamic model established in this paper can provide a theoretical basis for the macro control of the conflict evolution direction between pedestrian and vehicle. For instance, the current conflict situation between pedestrian and vehicle in a city is “vehicles first”. For promoting the traffic civilization, the transportation officials hope to change the current conflict situation to realize the “pedestrians first”. According to the model established in this paper, some parameters of the game matrix on the conflict between pedestrian and vehicle can be changed by formulating relevant highway traffic regulations to adjust the evolution direction of the conflict between pedestrian and vehicle.