MACHADO, J. C. B.; MACHADO, Júlio César Borba
Resumo:
The media over time has consolidated the "need" for people to own automobiles, placing
them as icons of freedom and success. This was one of the reasons for the increase in the
number of automobiles. Then the increase in the fleet generated discomfort within urban
centers due to the lack of adequate planning. Such planning can be carried out through
microsimulators, where it is possible to improve the urban infrastructure by modeling real
cases and finding parameters to be modified in order to obtain better results at a lower
cost for each case. As a result, this work aimed to look for alternatives to prioritize
pedestrian crossing at a traffic light intersection located in the city of Campina Grande –
PB, using the PTV VISSIM traffic microsimulator. For that matter, two solutions were
proposed, the first proposes the implementation of traffic lights for pedestrians that enable
two crosswalks on the diagonal of the intersection and the second proposes the prohibition
of some of the existing permissions at the intersection, in order to allow the pedestrian to
move around with safety. For the first solution, 3 (three) different walking average speeds
were used to obtain the additional red times of the traffic lights in which it was necessary
for the pedestrian to complete the route. For the second solution, 4 (four) existing permits
were removed, which allowed for a comfortable crossing. By establishing the two
solutions, the calibration of the real case was started using the calibration parameters for
the Wiedemann 99's car following model, which were found in the study by Queiroz
Júnior (2020), as well as the characteristics of the intersection such as number of lanes,
directions, number of traffic lights. Then, each solution was calibrated and, thus,
information was obtained on the average travel time, average queue length and the
average number of vehicles in each case. Thus, it can be concluded that Model 1 of
Solution 1 had little impact on the average travel time, as well as on the average queue
length. And, due to Solution 2, even with better results, a study involving the existing
intersections along Avenida Canal is needed, in addition to the one addressed in this
study. Therefore, Solution 1 is the one with the most credible results.