A sequential sampling model of pedestrian road crossing choice

Urban street space is often contested with competition and coordination between multiple road users and transport modes. Understanding how pedestrians decide to enter the carriageway can help inform how to plan and manage street space and is increasingly relevant as autonomous vehicles mature. In this paper, we present a description of pedestrian road crossing behaviour using a novel sequential sampling modelling approach implemented in a spatial agent-based model. The model explicitly represents the gradual process of deliberation between discrete road crossing choice alternatives resulting in a choice of crossing location. The model reproduces some characteristic pedestrian road crossing behaviours such as trade offs between vehicle exposure and journey time, non-compliant crossing (jaywalking), and dependence of crossing choice on the proximity of crossing alternatives.