Study on the risk assessment of Pedestrian-Vehicle conflicts in channelized Right-Turn lanes based on the Hierarchical-Grey Entropy-Cloud model.

Channelized right-turn lanes (CRTLs) in urban areas have been effective in improving the efficiency of right-turning vehicles but have also presented negative impacts on pedestrian movement. Pedestrians experience confusion regarding the allocation of road space when crossing crosswalks within these areas, leading to frequent conflicts between pedestrians and motor vehicles. In this paper, considering the characteristics of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts at channelized right-turn lanes as well as the ambiguity and uncertainty of the causes, a comprehensive assignment combined with a cloud model is proposed as a risk evaluation model for pedestrian-vehicle conflicts. The study established a risk indicator system based on three aspects of the transportation system: pedestrians, motor vehicles, and the road environment. Combining the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), grey relational analysis (GRA), and entropy weighting method (EWM) to get the weights of indicator combinations, and then using the cloud model to realize quantitative and qualitative language transformation to complete the risk evaluation. This study employs specific road segments in Qingdao as a validation case for model analysis. The results indicate that the model's evaluation outcomes exhibited a significant level of agreement with the findings from field investigations during both peak and off-peak periods. It is demonstrated that the model has good performance for the safety assessment of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts at CRTL, and it also reflects the ability of the model to assess fuzzy randomness problems. It provides participation value for urban pedestrian-vehicle safety problems as well as applications in other fields.