JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS

https://doi.org/10.1080/15472450.2021.1926246

Estimating pedestrian delay at signalized intersections using high-resolution

event-based data: a finite mixture modeling method
Abolfazl Karimpoura , Jason C. Andersonb , Sirisha Kothurib , and Yao-Jan Wua
a
Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Mechanics, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA; bDepartment of Civil
and Environmental Engineering, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

It has been widely shown that pedestrians’ level of frustration grows with the increase of Received 7 September 2020
pedestrian delay, and may cause pedestrians to violate the signals. However, for agencies Revised 30 March 2021
seeking to use multimodal signal performances for signal operations, the pedestrian delay is Accepted 3 May 2021
not always readily available. To tackle this issue, this study proposed a finite mixture model-
KEYWORDS
ing method to estimate pedestrian delay using high-resolution event-based data collected Finite mixture modeling;
from the smart sensors. The proposed method was used to estimate pedestrian delay at network-wide estimation;
four signalized intersections on a major arterial corridor in Pima County, Arizona. The results pedestrian delay;
showed the proposed method was able to capture and track the actual pedestrian delay transferability test
fluctuations during the day at all the study intersections with average errors of 10 s and 13 s pedestrian delay
for mean-absolute-error and root-mean-square-error, respectively. In addition, the proposed
model was compared with three conventional methods (HCM 2010, Virkler, Dunn) and the
comparison results showed that the proposed method outperforms all the other methods
in terms of both mean-absolute-error and root-mean-square-error. Furthermore, it was found
that the proposed method is transferable and can be used as a network-wide delay estima-
tion model for intersections with similar traffic patterns. The application of the proposed
method could provide agencies with a more reliable, robust, and yet accurate approach for
estimating pedestrian delay at signalized intersections where the pedestrian data are not
readily available. In addition, it will allow system operators to quantitatively assess existing
delays and enact changes to incorporate the better serve pedestrian needs.

Introduction unnecessary delays for pedestrians (Smaglik, 2018).

Walking is a critical component in the development
of healthy and sustainable communities. Although
more than one out of four trips are a 20-min walk or
less, the majority of these short trips are completed
using the automobile (FHWA, 2019). To improve
physical activity, and reduce congestion and emis-
sions, many cities are desirous of shifting these short
trips to active transportation modes such as walking.
Many of these walking trips are in urban areas and
require street crossings (Zegeer, 2002). Though gener-
ally viewed as the preferred place to cross the street
for safety reasons, intersections can be a deterrent for
walking if their design and operation heavily favor
motor vehicle movement. When vehicle volumes are
high, a traffic signal is used to separate conflicting
users in time. Traditionally, in the U.S., signal timing
objectives at intersections have prioritized vehicle
movements, resulting sometimes in large and
This unnecessary pedestrian delay is especially seen
along arterial corridors since arterials serve as hubs
for the pedestrian activity to varying land uses
(Habibian & Hosseinzadeh, 2018). Since most walking
trips are short, the delays imposed by the transporta-
tion system on pedestrians affect them disproportion-
ately when compared to other users. Therefore,
transportation agencies need to measure, analyze, and
monitor pedestrian and vehicle delays quantitatively
and qualitatively.
Delay, in general, is one of the most significant
measures that quantify the operation level of service
of intersections and is the most frequent measure
used for intersection mobility (Lattimer, 2020). For
the last decade, many studies have focused on various
analytical approaches for estimating vehicle delays
(Qiao et al., 2002; Wei et al., 2015). However, less
effort has been expended on analytical methods to

CONTACT Abolfazl Karimpour karimpouremail.arizona.edu Department of Civil & Architectural Engineering & Mechanics, The University of
Arizona, 1209 E. Second St. P.O. Box 210072, Tucson, AZ 85721.
ß 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 A. KARIMPOUR ET AL.
estimate pedestrian delay. Most of the existing studies
only focus on a modified formulation of the HCM
method. Pedestrian delay is an important measure that
is used to describe pedestrian travel and to evaluate the
level of service for pedestrians at intersections (HCM,
2010). It has been shown that pedestrians become impa-
tient when they experience delays greater than 30–50 s
per pedestrian (Guo & Zhang, 2014; Vallyon et al.,
2011). Alternately, they are likely to show high degrees
of compliance when delays are less than 10 s per pedes-
trian. The commonly used method in the HCM 2010
and HCM 6th edition to estimate pedestrian delay was
formulated as a function of cycle length and effective
walk time (Elefteriadou, 2016). The HCM method was
initially developed by Pretty (1979) by assuming uniform
arrival rates and fixed pedestrian timing (Pretty, 1979).
Recent studies are proposing more advanced analytical
models for enhancing the accuracy of the HCM method.
For instance, Wang and Tian (2010) proposed an
enhanced pedestrian delay estimation model based on
the HCM method for a two-stage pedestrian crossing
(Wang & Tian, 2010). The authors validated their model
under various simulation scenarios and showed that the
relationship between their proposed model and simula-
tion results is statistically significant. In another study, Li
et al. (2005) developed a relationship between average
pedestrian delay and pedestrian arrival on each sub-
phase. Unlike the HCM method, the authors assumed
that pedestrian arrival rates are not uniform throughout
cycles (Li et al., 2005). Marisamynathan and Vedagiri
(2013) proposed a pedestrian delay estimation model
based on three components: (a) pedestrian average wait-
ing time estimated from the HCM method, (b) average
crossing time delay, and (c) average vehicular pedestrian
interaction time (Marisamynathan & Vedagiri, 2013).
Many researchers would still argue regarding the
accuracy of the estimated pedestrian delay using the
HCM method (Chilukuri & Virkler, 2005; Hubbard
et al., 2008; Kothuri et al., 2012). For instance, Chilukuri
and Virkler conducted field studies of pedestrian delay
and showed that pedestrian arrivals at signalized inter-
sections in a coordinated system were not random and
the observed pedestrian delays were significantly differ-
ent than the pedestrian delay estimated using the HCM
method (Chilukuri & Virkler, 2005). To tackle this prob-
lem, recent technological advances in smart sensors have
allowed cities to collect a large amount of multimodal
data to estimate pedestrian delay. Automated Traffic
Signal Performance Measures (ATSPMs) is one of the
most recent technological advancements that utilize
high-resolution event-based data, signal phasing, and
overlap states and data analysis techniques to generate
metrics that can be used to provide insights into multi-
modal system operation (Day et al., 2016; Li et al., 2012;
Zheng et al., 2013). The performance metrics obtained
using ATSPM could be used to monitor and evaluate
the operation of multimodal transportation, such as ped-
estrian delay. While signal performance measures are a
great tool for system operations, they have been primar-
ily focused on vehicular measures. Signal performance
measures focused on multimodal users are a pressing
need for future research (Huang et al., 2018). However,
transportation agencies are still facing challenges on how
to incorporate the high-resolution event-based data for
obtaining multimodal signal performance measures,
such as pedestrian delay.
In this study, a pedestrian estimation method with
higher accuracy over the conventional deterministic
methods, such as HCM, is proposed. The proposed
methods use high-resolution event-based to estimate
pedestrian delay. Previous studies showed that pedestrian
delay distribution highly depends on pedestrian arrival
rate (Fi & Igazv€olgyi, 2014). Further, it has been widely
shown that the pedestrian arrival rate is no uniformly
distributed (Li et al., 2005; Zheng & Elefteriadou, 2017).
Therefore, this study proposed a method to estimate
pedestrian delay based on a mixture distribution. A mix-
ture or finite mixture distribution is the probability dis-
tribution of a random response variable that can be
characterized as a function of other random variables
(Lao et al., 2012). Due to the adaptability and applicabil-
ity of mixture models, they have been widely applied
across different fields within traffic and transportation
engineering, such as vehicle classification and speed esti-
mation (Lao et al., 2012), truck weight distribution esti-
mation (Hernandez, 2017; Hernandez & Hyun, 2020;
Regehr et al., 2020), arterial travel time estimation and
imputation (Karimpour, 2020; Karimpour et al., 2019;
Yang et al., 2018), and freeway travel time reliability
(Yang & Cooke, 2018), and traffic safety (Bakhshi &
Ahmed, 2021; Mansourkhaki et al., 2017a, 2017b).
However, to the best knowledge of the authors, no pre-
vious studies were identified that used finite mixture
modeling to estimate pedestrian delay. In this study, by
using a finite mixture model we were able to indirectly
estimate pedestrian delay using different metrics, such as
vehicular-related variables (e.g., traffic volume), and inte-
grate different variables with non-Gaussian underlying
distributions. Also, the advantage of using finite mixture
modeling compared to other traditional approaches is
that it does not assume a uniform pedestrian
arrival rate.
The application of the proposed method was used
to estimate pedestrian delay at four signalized
 JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 3

intersections on a major arterial corridor in Pima

County, Arizona. The objectives of this study were
three folds: (1) develop a pedestrian delay estimation
model using finite mixture modeling, (2) identify spe-
cific vehicular variables that can best characterize ped-
estrian delay distribution function, and (3) develop a
transferable network-wide pedestrian delay estima-
tion model.
The remainder of this paper is structured as described
herein. In the methodology section, the statistical
approaches used for delay estimation are thoroughly dis-
cussed. The study sites and data collection section provide
detailed information regarding the study intersections and
data used for model development. In the results section,
the proposed method is compared with some of the most
conventional delay estimation methods and model trans-
ferability is explored. In the last section, the application
and policy implications of the proposed method are
articulated and finally, conclusions and recommendations
for future research are provided.

Methodology
The framework of the proposed pedestrian estimation
method is illustrated in Figure 1. Initially, potential
variables and the appropriate number of mixture com-
ponents that can explain pedestrian delay functions
are selected and then the mixtures are generated. At
this stage, three-model selection criteria are used to
select the best fit. Next, the performance of the devel-
oped method is examined and compared with several
conventional pedestrian estimation methods. Finally, Figure 1. Study framework.
the model transferability is tested. In the following
subsections, detailed information regarding each stage
is thoroughly discussed. where x represents the observable pedestrian delay, pk
represents the mixture weights, and N ðx j lk , Rk Þ
represents the component Gaussian densities. The
Generating mixture models component Gaussian density is a D-variate Gaussian
Based on the central limit theorem, when the sample function such that:
size is large, the mean of the response variable is h i
1 12ðxlk Þ' R1 ðxl Þ
approximately normally distributed. Based on this the- N ðx j lk , Rk Þ ¼ D 1
e k k
(2)
orem, in this study, a Gaussian mixture model ð2pÞ 2 jRk j2
(GMM), one of the common finite mixture models, is
where lk is a component-specific mean vector, Rk is a com-
utilized to analytically characterize pedestrian delay
ponent-specific covariance matrix, and pk must satisfy:
distributions as a function of specific variables (e.g.,
traffic flow, cycle length, pedestrian effective green X
K
pk ¼ 1 (3)
duration). A GMM is a weighted sum, or superpos-
k¼1
ition, of K component Gaussian densities (also called
a mixture of Gaussians): For the mixing weights to satisfy the conditions of
being probabilities, pðxÞ  0 and N ðx j lk , Rk Þ  0
X
K
pðxÞ ¼ pk N ðx j lk , Rk Þ (1) implies that pk  0 8 k: Therefore, values for pk are
k¼1 constrained to be between zero and one. Based on the
4 A. KARIMPOUR ET AL.

presented formulae, the form of the Gaussian mixture important to train a few models that can be trans-
is controlled by lk , pk , and Rk , where they are esti- ferred to other intersections. The succeeding subsec-
mated via maximum likelihood: tion will discuss the approach used for testing the
" # transferability of the proposed method.
X
N X
K
LLðpk , lk , Rk Þ ¼ ln pk N ðx j lk , Rk Þ (4)
n¼1 k¼1
Transferability test
Assuming pedestrian delay has a Gaussian distribu-
The transferability of a model is defined as the appli-
tion, such that:
cation of a formulated and trained model from one
x  N k ðl k , Rk Þ (5) context to another context. For effective model trans-
the component-specific mean (l k Þ and the compo- ferability, theoretical and practical conditions should
nent-specific covariance matrix ðRk Þ are a function of be met. The theoretical condition describes the under-
covariates as below: lying behavioral process of the model in the applica-
tion and in the context where the model was
l k ¼ b0, k þ bj, k X þ e (6)
estimated. The practical condition describes the avail-
Rk ¼ Rk ðXÞ (7) ability of similar data sources in both the application
and in the context where the model was estimated.
where X is a vector of random variables. bi, k are the
In the case of the current study, transferability is
estimated coefficients of the variables for the kth
defined as developing and training a general model that
Gaussian mixture component using maximum likeli-
can be used to estimate pedestrian delay at all intersec-
hood. For this study cycle length, pedestrian effective
tions with similar traffic patterns in a network.
green duration, and traffic flow were used as the vari-
Transferability in this study is premised on parameter
ables, and based on the above formulation the pedes-
transferability using a log-likelihood ratio test from a
trian delay model was estimated. In the next
statistical or econometric model, or any model where
subsection, the conventional pedestrian delay estima-
previously estimated parameters from one scenario are
tion model used for performance evaluation and com-
used to estimate data from another (Karasmaa, 2001;
parison are summarized.
Sheela & Mannering, 2020; Wang et al., 2021; Yasmin
et al., 2015). The underlying ideology is to conduct a
GMMs performance evaluation and comparison log-likelihood ratio test, assess predictions, and/or assess
In order to compare the accuracy of the proposed parameter estimates. The current study applies this
method with existing literature, three conventional ideology by using previously estimated parameters in a
pedestrian delay estimation approaches new context, in this case, alternate intersections. The
were considered. proposed approach in the current study most closely
resembles one of the techniques presented by Wang
1. HCM 2010 (similar to HCM 6th edition) et al. (2021), in which various prediction metrics are
(Elefteriadou, 2016; Wang & Tian, 2010): assessed by using previously estimated parameters to
estimate data from an alternate intersection (Wang
0:5 ðC  gÞ2 et al., 2021). To evaluate the accuracy of the transferred
dp ¼ (8)
C model, multiple measures of effectiveness (MOEs) are
2. Virkler method (Virkler, 1998): selected, and the accuracy of the transferred model is
evaluated with actual data. In addition, the performance
ðc  ðg þ 0:69AÞÞ2
dp ¼ (9) of the transferred model is evaluated using a baseline
2c method. A detailed description of the transferability test
3. Dunn method (Dunn & Pretty, 1984) is provided in the “Transferability Test” subsection.
ðg þ 10Þ2
dp ¼ (10)
2ðg þ 15Þ Study sites and data collection
where dp denotes the average delay per pedestrian (s), Ina Road corridor in Pima County, Arizona was
C denotes the cycle length (s), g is the pedestrian selected as the study corridor. This is a west-east cor-
effective walk time (s), and A is the clearance time (s). ridor connecting the east side of Tucson to Interstate
Training estimation models is usually a costly, com- 10, with a speed limit of 45 mi/h. This corridor is a
plex, and time-consuming procedure. Therefore, it is multimodal arterial with high volumes of passenger

Figure 2. (a) In a road corridor and case study intersections; (b) sample ring barrier diagram.
cars, transit, and pedestrian activity. Four major sig-
nalized intersections: (1) W Ina Rd. & N Camino De
La Tierra, (2) W Ina Rd. & N Shannon Rd., (3) W
Ina Rd. & N La Cholla Blvd., and (4) W Ina Rd. & N
La Ca~ nada Dr. on this corridor, as illustrated in
Figure 2a, were selected as study locations. All the
intersections have four legs, with two through move-
ment lanes for the major streets and dedicated left-
turn lane(s) that separate left-turning vehicles from
through movements. A ring barrier diagram for the
signal timing plan deployed on these intersections is
illustrated in Figure 2b. Pima County Department of
Transportation (PCDOT) oversees the operation of
this corridor. The selected intersections follow actu-
ated-coordinated timing, with the major approaches
in coordination (Phases 2 and 6) while the minor
approaches are actuated (Phases 4 and 8) only during
peak periods.
These intersections were specifically chosen as
study locations as they are all equipped with
Miovision’s SmartView 360 video-based sensors.
These video-based sensors provide both real-time and
JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 5
historical monitoring. The SmartView sensors provide
vehicle detection, traffic classification, and high-reso-
lution event-based data (Miovision Team, 2020),
which is accessible through an application program-
ming interface (API). The raw data include cycle
length, vehicle and pedestrian delay, and pedestrian
effective green duration. For this study, data from
January and February 2020 were obtained from the
API for the four selected intersections.
Data preprocessing
Before conducting any data analysis, an outlier filter-
ing algorithm was applied to the raw data to remove
any erroneous observations. The outlier filtering algo-
rithm used in this study was the moving interquartile
range (IQR). The IQR is the difference between the
25th percentile (Q [1]) and the 75th percentile (Q [3])
of the data (IQR ¼ Q½3  Q ½1Þ: Based on the defin-
ition by Tukey (1977), all data that fall outside of the
inner fences f1 ¼ Q ½1  1:5ðIQRÞ and f2 ¼
Q ½3 þ 1:5ðIQRÞ a re considered outliers
6 A. KARIMPOUR ET AL.
(Schwertman & de Silva, 2007; Tukey, 1977). The
event-based data used in this study (cycle length,
vehicle and pedestrian delay, and pedestrian effective
green duration) are not all normally distributed.
Therefore, it is important to use an outlier filtering
algorithm that is able to handle non-normally distrib-
uted data. Since IQR outlier filtering uses the first and
third quartile as the filter range, it is known to be
more robust than other outlier filtering approaches. In
addition, traffic pattern and signal timing parameters
(e.g., cycle length) frequently change during the
course of the day. Therefore, in this study, a moving
IQR outlier filtering algorithm was used, which
grouped data into 15-min blocks and calculated the
inner fences (f1 and f2) for each block. At each block,
all the data samples outside of the inner fences are
considered outliers. Previous studies also showed that
IQR outlier filtering is known to be a strong filtering
algorithm while dealing with time-series data and has
been applied frequently for removing outliers in many
traffic-related studies (Li et al., 2014; Zang
et al., 2018).
After outlier filtering, there was over a 4% reduc-
tion in the vehicle-related data and a 16% reduction
in the pedestrian-related data. The outlier distribution
showed that over 45% of all outliers for the vehicle-
related data were during off-peak hours and 55% dur-
ing peak hours. This is intuitive because a larger
amount of data were recorded during the peak hours.
A similar trend was also observed for pedestrian-
related data. A more in-depth analysis was carried out
on the data to illustrate the outlier distribution
throughout the day. As expected, the density of the
outliers was primarily concentrated during peak peri-
ods. Figure 3 illustrates the outlier and nonoutlier
observations for cycle length, traffic flow, pedestrian
delay, and pedestrian effective green duration (dark
points represent outliers); Figure 3a shows the plots
related to major approaches, and Figure 3b shows the
plots related to minor approaches.
All of the intersections follow an actuated-coordi-
nated timing plan during peak periods (6:00  9:00
a.m. and 3:00  6:00 p.m.) with a maximum cycle
length of 150 s, and during off-peak periods operate
under a free, non-coordinated timing plan. Therefore,
as illustrated in Figure 3, the cycle length might be
extended to 1,000 s during off-peak hours. It is worth
mentioning that some of the outliers were not shown
in the figure simply because they were automatically
removed due to restrictions imposed on the y-
axis limits.
The results of the outlier analysis for cycle length,
vehicle and pedestrian delay, and pedestrian effective
green duration are tabulated in Table 1. For all the
variables, the pattern associated with the percent
change showed a similar trend for all the intersec-
tions. It is worth mentioning that pedestrian delay
values in Table 1 are calculated based on the high-
resolution event-based data collected using
Miovision’s SmartView 360 sensors at each intersec-
tion. Pedestrian Delay in this table displays the differ-
ence in time between pedestrian pushbutton actuation
during the Don’t Walk phase and when the phase
turns to Walk.
The magnitude of percent change among various
variables and intersections clearly outlines the import-
ance of outlier filtering. Among the variables, only
traffic flow does not significantly change before and
after outlier filtering. Based on the results from Table
1, W Ina Rd. & N La Cholla Blvd. and W Ina Rd. &
N La Ca~ nada Dr. are experiencing a higher amount of
pedestrian delay while crossing the major streets com-
pared to the other two intersections. This could be
explained by the traffic patterns at these two intersec-
tions. W Ina Rd. & N La Cholla Blvd. and W Ina Rd.
& N La Ca~ nada Dr have a much higher traffic volume
on their minor streets compared to W Ina Rd. & N
Camino De La Tierra and W Ina Rd. & N Shannon
Rd. To shed additional light on the traffic patterns on
minor and major streets, they are visualized at each
intersection for different approaches in Figure 4.
Based on the traffic patterns shown in Figure 4, on
the major streets (EBT and WBT), the traffic pattern
is similar for all the intersections. For all the intersec-
tions, the peak traffic starts forming around 6:00 a.m.,
with the highest volume of 1,288 vehicles per hour
observed at 7:30 a.m. and 1,600 vehicles per hour
observed at 3:00 p.m. The traffic pattern on minor
streets (NBT & SBT) is higher for W Ina Rd. & N La
Cholla Blvd. and W Ina Rd. & N La Ca~ nada Dr. com-
pared to the other two intersections; this is due to the
presence of local businesses and surrounding land use.
Among all the intersections, W Ina Rd. & N Camino
De La Tierra experiences the lowest amount of traffic
on the minor streets, with the highest observed peak
of 84 vehicles per hour. To temporally align the ped-
estrian data with the vehicle data, all the data were
aggregated into 15-min bins and the vehicle data were
aligned with the pedestrian data, as appropriate, at
each intersection. Upon aligning the two datasets, a
finite mixture model was generated for each intersec-
tion under consideration.
 JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 7

Figure 3. Outlier vs non-outliers distribution on time of day: (a) major approaches, (b) Minor Approaches.
 8
Table 1. Descriptive statistics before and after outlier analysis.
W Ina Rd. & N Camino De La Tierra W Ina Rd. & N Shannon W Ina Rd. & N La Cholla W Ina Rd. & N La
(Minor Streets) Rd. (Minor Streets) Blvd. (Minor Streets) Can
~ada Dr. (Minor Streets)
With
outliers No outliers % Change With outliers No outliers % Change With outliers No outliers % Change With outliers No outliers % Change
Cycle Length (Sec) Sample Size 42,490 40,807 –3.96 47,559 46,310 –2.63 53,643 51,397 –4.19 56,350 53,949 –4.26
Mean 127.18 120.71 –5.09 110.93 108.07 –2.58 111.96 110.16 –1.61 103.95 102.32 –1.57
Median 124.03 122.58 –1.17 107.99 106.91 –1.00 115.98 113.30 –2.32 104.08 101.48 –2.50
St. Dev. 82.12 53.79 –34.50 60.74 47.58 –21.67 44.49 41.42 –6.90 46.70 43.01 –7.89
A. KARIMPOUR ET AL.

95th Percentile 189.49 167.17 –11.78 167.01 163.05 –2.37 167.74 165.83 –1.14 160.34 158.73 –1.00
Traffic Flow (Veh/Hr) Sample Size 9,955 9,597 –3.60 8,485 8,319 –1.96 9,063 8,960 –1.14 8,827 8,727 –1.13
Mean 22.28 22.23 –0.21 124.08 123.93 –0.12 300.66 302.50 0.61 340.00 345.63 1.66
Median 20.00 20.00 0.00 132.00 132.00 0.00 336.00 336.00 0.00 344.00 344.00 0.00
St. Dev. 14.77 14.21 –3.79 91.77 90.67 –1.20 231.44 231.20 0.11 274.19 274.28 0.03
95th Percentile 48.00 48.00 0.00 276.00 272.00 –1.45 692.00 692.00 0.00 800.00 804.00 0.50
Pedestrian Delay (Sec) Sample Size 1,133 1,082 –4.50 2,564 2,491 –2.85 1,745 1,683 3.55 346 299 –13.58
Mean 74.97 47.82 –36.21 51.06 49.32 –3.41 64.27 57.80 –10.06 76.42 66.63 –12.81
Median 37.74 36.05 –4.49 39.56 39.27 –0.73 49.36 48.36 –2.02 57.69 59.16 2.54
St. Dev. 372.34 42.21 –88.66 59.49 38.63 –35.07 125.25 38.78 –69.03 22.59 39.44 74.60
95th Percentile 137.88 133.40 –3.25 127.92 125.80 –1.66 138.68 136.64 –1.47 142.85 140.17 –1.87
Effective Ped. Sample Size 1,133 977 –13.77 2,564 2,071 –19.23 1,745 1,477 –15.36 346 276 –20.23
Green Duration (Sec) Mean 5.00 5.00 0.12 6.98 7.00 0.29 4.99 5.00 0.20 4.99 5.00 0.26
Median 5.00 5.00 0.00 7.01 7.01 0.00 5.01 5.01 0.00 5.01 5.01 0.00
St. Dev. 0.03 0.01 –68.40 0.24 0.01 –96.04 0.03 0.01 –61.87 0.16 0.022 –86.03
95th Percentile 5.01 5.01 –0.02 7.02 7.02 –0.03 5.01 5.01 –0.04 5.01 5.01 –0.02

Figure 4. Traffic patterns during day by intersection and approach.
Estimation results
Generating mixture model
Identifying the specific variables that can explain the
pedestrian delay distribution function is beneficial
when the measured pedestrian delay information is
not available. In this study, three variables, cycle
length, pedestrian effective green duration, and traffic
flow were used as potential candidates to model ped-
estrian delay. To avoid multicollinearity issues during
the modeling process, the correlation between these
variables was calculated using Pearson and Spearman
correlation tests (Pearson, 1895; Wissler, 1905). Figure
5 depicts the correlation among these variables.
The correlation results indicate that there exists a
negative correlation between traffic flow and the ped-
estrian effective green duration, cycle length, and ped-
estrian effective green duration, and a positive
correlation between cycle length and traffic flow.
However, for all three cases, the magnitude of the cor-
relation is lower than 0.30 and therefore no strong
correlation could be observed.
JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 9
Next, to select the number of GMMs a range of
K ¼ 1:20 mixtures were selected. Based on the Akaike
Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian informa-
tion criterion (BIC) values, a graph relating the num-
ber of GMMs with the corresponding AIC and BIC
was developed. Based on this graph it was observed
that after four GMMs, the AIC/BIC values diverged.
Therefore, further model development was only done
for two, three, and four mixture components.
Seven models with various combinations of the var-
iables with two, three, and four mixture components
were trained for each intersection. To identify the
most appropriate combination of variables and the
best number of mixture components, the AIC, BIC,
and log-likelihood values were estimated for the indi-
vidual models (Tables 2–5). The AIC value denotes
the relative distance between the true and the esti-
mated likelihood function of the observed data
(Hirotugu, 1974), the BIC value denotes an estimate
of a function of the posterior model being accurate
(Stone, 1979), and the log-likelihood measures the
goodness of fit of a statistical model. Therefore, a
10 A. KARIMPOUR ET AL.

Figure 5. Correlation analysis among the variables.

Table 2. Gaussian mixture model results for W Ina Rd. & N Camino De La Tierra.
Two-component Three-component Four-component
Independent variables AIC BIC Log-likelihood AIC BIC Log-likelihood AIC BIC Log-likelihood
Traffic flow 9,445.95 9,480.05 –4,715.98 9,376.60 9,430.19 –4,677.30 9,384.40 9,457.48 –4,677.20
Cycle length 9,389.37 9,423.48 –4,687.68 9,329.96 9,383.55 –4,653.98 9,309.87 9,382.96 –4,631.67
Ped. green duration 9,514.77 9,548.87 –4,750.38 9,388.69 9,442.29 –4,683.35 9,358.46 9,431.54 –4,664.23
Traffic flow þ cycle length 9,392.75 9,436.60 –4,687.38 9,323.38 9,391.59 –4,647.69 9,323.53 9,391.74 –4,647.76
FLOW þ Ped. green duration 9,448.99 9,492.84 –4,715.49 9,380.13 9,448.31 –4,676.06 9,392.34 9,484.91 –4,677.17
Cycle length þ Ped. green duration 9,392.77 9,436.62 –4,687.38 9,334.26 9,402.47 –4,653.13 9,301.35 9,393.92 –4,639.94
Cycle length þ Ped. green 9,453.77 9,507.36 –4,715.88 9,325.09 9,407.92 –4,645.54 9,399.99 9,482.82 –4,682.99
duration þ traffic flow

Table 3. Gaussian mixture model results for W Ina Rd. & N Shannon Rd.
Two-component Three-component Four-component
Independent variables AIC BIC Log-likelihood AIC BIC Log-likelihood AIC BIC Log-likelihood
Traffic flow 17,742.68 17,781.13 –8,864.34 17,666.70 17,727.11 –8,822.35 17,603.46 17,685.84 –8,786.73
Cycle Length 17,661.51 17,699.95 –8,823.75 17,567.87 17,628.28 –8,772.94 17,541.51 17,623.89 –8,755.76
Ped. Green Duration 17,753.78 17,792.22 –8,869.89 17,675.22 17,735.62 –8,826.61 17,682.78 17,765.15 –8,826.39
Traffic Flow þ Cycle Length 17,664.38 17,713.81 –8,823.19 17,572.36 17,649.24 –8,772.18 17,536.46 17,640.81 –8,749.23
FLOW þ Ped. Green Duration 17,746.18 17,795.61 –8,864.09 17,670.05 17,746.93 –8,821.02 17,679.78 17,784.12 –8,820.89
Cycle Length þ Ped. Green Duration 17,664.88 17,714.31 –8,823.44 17,570.38 17,647.27 ––8,771.19 17,541.87 17,646.22 –8,751.94
Cycle Length þ Ped. Green 17,667.72 17,728.13 –8,822.86 17,574.62 17,667.98 –8,770.31 17,545.22 17,671.53 –8,749.61
Duration þ Traffic Flow

lower AIC and BIC mean a model closer to the real
data and a higher log-likelihood (i.e., a value closer to
zero) shows a model with a better fit.
Being that maximum likelihood estimation was
used to estimate the Gaussian mixture component
parameters (lk , pk , and Rk ), the log-likelihood criter-
ion was selected as the measure for identifying the
most appropriate model. Therefore, the models with
the highest log-likelihood values (closest to zero) were
selected as the final model representing pedestrian
delay at each intersection (shaded in gray in Tables
2ble 5).
Based on the log-likelihood values for W Ina Rd.
and N Shannon Rd., W Ina Rd. and N La Cholla
 JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 11

Table 4. Gaussian Mixture Model Results for W Ina Rd. & N La Cholla Blvd.
Two-component Three-component Four-component
Independent variables AIC BIC Log-likelihood AIC BIC Log-likelihood AIC BIC Log-likelihood
Traffic flow 12,366.95 12,402.76 –6,176.47 12,357.53 12,413.80 –6,167.77 12,335.95 12,412.69 –6,152.98
Cycle length 12,310.50 12,346.31 –6,148.25 12,294.42 12,350.69 –6,136.21 12,270.81 12,347.54 –6,120.40
Ped.green duration 12,380.55 12,416.36 –6,183.28 12,370.76 12,427.03 –6,174.38 12,367.06 12,443.79 –6,168.53
Traffic flow þ cycle length 12,310.45 12,356.49 –6,146.23 12,298.41 12,370.03 –6,135.20 12,276.85 12,374.05 –6,119.43
Traffic flow þ Ped. green duration 12,370.39 12,416.43 –6,176.19 12,432.65 12,361.03 –6,166.52 12,355.84 12,453.04 –6,158.92
Cycle length þ Ped. green duration 12,314.45 12,360.49 –6,148.22 12,299.28 12,370.89 –6,135.64 12,290.43 12,387.63 –6,126.22
Cycle length þ Ped. green 12,314.44 12,370.71 –6,146.22 12,300.48 12,387.44 –6,133.24 12,302.04 12,419.69 –6,128.02
duration þ traffic flow

Table 5. Gaussian mixture model results for W Ina Rd. & N La Ca~nada Dr.
Two-component Three-component Four-component
Independent variables AIC BIC Log-likelihood AIC BIC Log-likelihood AIC BIC Log-likelihood
Traffic flow 2,357.04 2,381.20 –1,171.52 2,359.11 2,397.07 –1,168.56 2,367.56 2,419.33 –1,168.78
Cycle length 2,332.41 2,356.57 –1,159.21 2,327.60 2,365.56 –1,152.80 2,333.08 2,384.84 –1,151.54
Ped. green duration 2,354.68 2,378.84 –1,170.34 2,361.58 2,399.54 –1,169.79 2,369.90 2,421.66 –1,169.95
Traffic flow þ cycle length 2,336.42 2,367.48 –1,159.21 2,331.39 2,379.71 –1,151.70 2,332.87 2,398.44 –1,147.44
Traffic flow þ Ped. green duration 2,356.15 2,387.21 –1,169.07 2,363.79 2,412.11 –1,167.90 2,356.91 2,405.23 –1,164.46
Cycle length þ Ped. green duration 2,329.4 2,360.46 –1,155.70 2,324.92 2,373.24 –1,148.46 2,324.93 2,373.25 –1,148.47
Cycle length þ Ped. green 2,333.4 2,371.36 –1,155.70 2,330.69 2,389.35 –1,148.34 2,342.75 2,422.12 –1,148.37
duration þ Traffic flow

Table 6. Detailed information on the selected models.

Estimated coefficient
Intersection Variables GMM #1 GMM #2 GMM #3 GMM #4
W Ina Rd. & N Camino De La Tierra Intercept 1,544.84 –38.17 –299.74 –1,907.37
Cycle length 0.50 0.02 0.13 1.47
Traffic flow – – – –
Effective pedestrian green duration –305.62 8.98 62.63 365.25
Variance (Rk ) 30.99 5.17 14.56 5.48
Prior probability (pk ) 0.41 0.32 0.20 0.06
W Ina Rd. & N Shannon Rd. Intercept 10.46 10.12 6.83 11.63
Cycle length 0.11 0.74 0.02 0.31
Traffic flow 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.03
Effective pedestrian green duration – – – –
Variance (Rk ) 10 22.93 5.37 19.51
Prior probability (pk ) 0.28 0.23 0.17 0.32
W Ina Rd. & N La Cholla Blvd. Intercept 0.39 –4.16 –1.22 8.06
Cycle length 0.23 0.58 0.42 0.84
Traffic flow –0.01 0.03 0.00 0.00
Effective pedestrian green duration – – – –
Variance (Rk ) 13.98 11.35 19.9 16.1
Prior probability (pk ) 0.40 0.14 0.31 0.15
~ada Dr.
W Ina Rd. & N La Can Intercept –5.57 42.68 –29.69 –1.08
Cycle length 1.02 –0.30 0.52 0.66
Traffic flow –0.01 0.02 0.00 0.00
Effective pedestrian green duration – – – –
Variance (Rk ) 10.65 4.93 14.07 16.33
Prior probability (pk ) 0.16 0.06 0.48 0.30
GMM ¼ Gaussian Mixture Model.

Blvd., and W Ina Rd. and N La Ca~ nada Dr., a four-
component mixture model with cycle length and traf-
fic flow as the variables was the best model that repre-
sents pedestrian delay distribution. For W Ina Rd. and
N Camino De La Tierra a four-component mixture
model with cycle length and pedestrian green duration
as variables was the best model. However, note that a
four-component mixture model with cycle length and
traffic flow showed almost a similar log-likelihood
value for this intersection. The difference between the
log-likelihood of these two models is only 7.82.
The reason behind the difference in the variables
that represent the pedestrian delay function for W Ina
Rd. and N Camino De La Tierra compared to other
intersections could be the traffic patterns on this
intersection. Relatively, this intersection is experienc-
ing a much lower traffic volume on its minor streets
(high volume of 84 vehicles per hour) compared to
12 A. KARIMPOUR ET AL.
Figure 6. Probability distribution function of pedestrian delay.
the other intersections. Therefore, traffic flow might
not be the best variable representing pedestrian delay
function at this intersection.
GMMs performance evaluation and comparison
After identifying the final variables and number of com-
ponents for the mixture model of each intersection, the
estimated coefficients of these variables for each
Gaussian mixture component (bi, k ), the component-spe-
cific covariance (Rk ), and the prior probability of their
component (pk ) are tabulated in Table 6. The bi, k from
this table were inserted into Equation 6 to identify the
center of each mixture component, the component-spe-
cific covariance was used to define the width of each
component, and the Prior Probability (pk ) was used to
define how big or small the Gaussian function will be.
The premise behind selecting certain characteristics
(e.g., signal schedule and traffic volume) stems from
previous analytical methods determining that these
characteristics have a vital role in estimating pedes-
trian delay (Elefteriadou, 2016; Qiao et al., 2002; Wei
et al., 2015). The estimated coefficients in Table 6 can
shed additional light on how these characteristics con-
tribute to the likelihood of observing pedestrian delay.
Intuitively, it is expected that the coefficient for
effective pedestrian green duration be negative (it is
associated with a decreased likelihood of observing
pedestrian delay). In the remaining components, how-
ever, positive estimates are observed for an effective
pedestrian green duration and, relatively, large nega-
tive estimates are observed for the estimated con-
stants. At first glance, this may appear to be
counterintuitive but is likely a sign of the data being
susceptible to large amounts of heterogeneity (unob-
servable that influence the outcome of interest), in
which the constants are inherently capturing. That is
to say, the effects of effective pedestrian green dur-
ation may be heterogeneous within the remaining
Gaussian components due to a variety of unobservable
that are related to spatial characteristics, operational
characteristics, pedestrian-specific behavior, etc.
In regard to the additional characteristics (cycle
length and the traffic flow) that were considered, all
estimates are positive. These findings are plausible, as
increases in cycle length and the traffic flow can lead
to increased delay at intersection crossings.
To provide a side-by-side accuracy evaluation, the
empirical histograms of the actual pedestrian delay
were plotted against the PDFs of the pedestrian delay
estimated by the mixture models, as shown in Figure
6; the blue line shows the PDF of the estimated delay

Figure 7. Model evaluation-average delay.
using the mixture models and the gray boxes are the
empirical histograms of the pedestrian delay.
The density plots in Figure 6 show that the esti-
mated PDFs using four mixture components are able
to capture and track the trend of the empirical histo-
gram. The mixture models were more robust while
estimating higher pedestrian delay. That is, the esti-
mated PDF was much closer to the empirical histo-
gram of the data. The performance of the proposed
method was also compared to three conventional ped-
estrian delay estimation models. Figure 7 compares
the average pedestrian delay at the study intersections
with the estimated values from four different models.
The following findings were observed from this figure.
1. Based on Equation 10, in the Dunn method, pedes-
trian effective green duration (g) is the only variable
used for estimating the pedestrian delay function. The
average amount of effective pedestrian green duration
for all the intersections is 5.68 s, with a variance of
0.94 s. Therefore, it is expected to see a constant flat
curve when estimating pedestrian delay.
2. The Virkler method is able to capture most of the
fluctuation of pedestrian delay throughout the
day, but it heavily overestimates the actual delay.
Comparing with the proposed method, this
method uses cycle length, effective green duration,
JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 13
and clearance time as variables used for estimat-
ing the pedestrian delay function. The Virkler
method is overestimating the pedestrian delay on
average by, 28.06, 22.27, 32.05, and 14.26 s on W
Ina Rd. & N Camino De La Tierra, W Ina Rd. &
N Shannon Rd., W Ina Rd. & N La Cholla Blvd.,
and W Ina Rd. & N La Ca~ nada Dr, respectively.
3. Compared with Dunn and Virkler, HCM is the
most accurate method. The HCM method is also
able to capture all the fluctuation of pedestrian
delay throughout the day. The HCM method only
uses cycle length as a variable for defining the
pedestrian delay function. However, since the
HCM method does not integrate the impact of
traffic patterns during the day, it sometimes heav-
ily overestimates or underestimates the actual
value. For instance, HCM overestimates pedes-
trian delay throughout the day for W Ina Rd. &
N Camino De La Tierra and W Ina Rd. & N La
Cholla Blvd on average by 4.74 and 4.08s, respect-
ively; for W Ina Rd. & N Shannon Rd. overesti-
mates pedestrian delay on peak hours on average
by 3.82 s and underestimate during off-peak on
average by 2.43 s; for W Ina Rd. & N La Ca~ nada
Dr underestimate pedestrian delay on peak hours
on average by 12.07 s and overestimates during
off-peak on average by 2.97 s.
14 A. KARIMPOUR ET AL.

Table 7. Comparison results (average delay).

W Ina Rd. & W Ina Rd. & N W Ina Rd. & N La W Ina Rd. & N
Methods MOEs N Camino De La Tierra Shannon Rd. Cholla Blvd. La Ca~
nada Dr.
Proposed method RMSE (s) 14.69 12.32 11.63 15.69
MAE (s) 11.13 9.19 9.52 11.26
HCM 2010 RMSE (s) 38.98 40.24 39.46 42.92
MAE (s) 32.75 34.25 33.47 37.31
Virkler method RMSE (s) 52.77 44.15 49.62 41.95
MAE (s) 44.5 38.36 42.91 36.49
Dunn method RMSE (s) 61.02 60.12 69.86 76.74
MAE (s) 43.99 45.63 56.75 63.34

4. The proposed method is able to capture and track
all the fluctuation of pedestrian delay during the
day. In addition, based on the results from Figure
7, the proposed method is robust toward the
spikes happening during the day. This is because
the proposed method uses both information from
cycle length and traffic flow as variables repre-
senting pedestrian delay function (for one inter-
section cycle length and effective pedestrian
delay duration).
To quantitatively compare the accuracy of each
method, Root-mean-squared-error (RMSE) and mean-
absolute-error (MAE) were selected as measures of
effectiveness (MOEs). RMSE is related to the standard
deviation of the estimated error and measures the
weighted average of estimation error, and MAE is
related to the absolute value of the estimation error.
Previous studies also suggested RMSE and MAE as
good indicators of estimation accuracy (Hosseinpour
et al., 2013; Murat, 2006). RMSE and MAE can be cal-
culated based on the following equations:
1. Root-mean-square error (RMSE): this measure is
the weighted average of fitting error. RMSE gives
higher weights to larger errors.
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1X n
RMSE ¼ ðDF, t  DA, t Þ2
n i¼1
2. Mean absolute error (MAE): this measure shows
the average prediction error (the average distance
of the fitted value from the actual value).
Pn
jDF, t  DA, t j
MAE ¼ i¼1
n
where n denotes the sample size, and Y^ t and Yt are
the estimated and observed data, respectively.
Table 7 quantifies the results of the method com-
parison. The overall results of the MOEs clearly
showed that the proposed method outperforms all the
conventional methods irrespective of the intersection.
The values in this table are based on the average delay
over the data collection period.
RMSE gives a relatively high weight to larger errors
and is useful in cases where large magnitude errors
are particularly undesirable (Jao, 2011). The low
RMSE of the proposed method compared to other
methods shows the absence of large errors in the pro-
posed method. MAE shows the absolute difference
between the estimated and actual value. MAE does
not consider the direction of error, and all errors have
equal weights. Comparing the amount of MAE among
the methods, the proposed method also estimates ped-
estrian delay with better accuracy. Overall, the results
of the method comparison show the superiority of the
proposed method and how the proposed method is
able to provide a more reliable, robust, and yet accur-
ate estimate for pedestrian delay at signalized
intersections.
Transferability test
Training estimation models is usually a costly, com-
plex, and time-consuming procedure. In addition, it is
not always feasible for agencies to collect sufficient
traffic data at each intersection on a network to per-
form variable selection and training. Therefore, it is
(11) important to train a few models that can be trans-
ferred to other intersections. In this study, the trans-
ferability test was used to analyze whether the trained
model for one intersection could be used to predict
the pedestrian delay in another intersection. To do so,
the disaggregated prediction transferability test was
conducted. The following steps describe the transfer-
ability test conducted in this study:
(12)
 Step 1: Develop a pedestrian estimation model
(PDE) for each intersection using the data from
that specific intersection. At this step, four PDEs
will be developed. PDE-1 describes the PDE
trained with data from intersection 1 (intersections
1–4 are described in Table 8 using abbreviation
 JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 15

Table 8. Results of the disaggregated prediction transferability test.

Predictions for
Int.#1: W Ina Rd. Int.#3: W Ina Int.#4: W Ina
& N Camino De Int.#2: W Ina Rd. & N La Rd. & N La
La Tierra Rd. & N Shannon Rd. Cholla Blvd. Ca~nada Dr.
RMSE (s)
Int.#1: W Ina Rd. & N Camino
De La Tierra (PDE-1) – 17.64 (40.24) 19.17 (39.46) 22.35 (42.92)
Int.#2: W Ina Rd. &
N Shannon Rd. (PDE-2) 10.91 (38.98) – 12.34 (39.46) 14.78 (42.92)
Int.#3: W Ina Rd. & N
La Cholla Blvd. (PDE-3) 15.40 (38.98) 14.70 (40.24) – 13.06 (42.92)
Int.#4: W Ina Rd. & N
Trained based0 on La Can~ada Dr. (PDE-4) 19.56 (38.98) 18.10 (40.24) 17.91 (39.46) –
MAE (s)
Trained Based On Int.#1: W Ina Rd. & N – 13.96 (34.25) 15.52 (33.47) 18.65(37.31)
Camino De La Tierra (PDE-1)
Int.#2: W Ina Rd. & N 8.95 (32.75) – 9.86 (33.47) 12.33 (37.31)
Shannon Rd. (PDE-2)
Int.#3: W Ina Rd. & N La 12.65 (32.75) 11.77 (34.25) – 9.23 (37.31)
Cholla Blvd. (PDE-3)
Int.#4: W Ina Rd. & N La 14.75 (32.75) 12.94 (34.25) 12.47 (33.47) –
Ca~nada Dr. (PDE-4)
Model accuracy using HCM 2010.

Int.#). Similarly, we developed PDE-2, PDE-3, and
PDE-4 (refer to Table 8).
 Step 2: Each PDE is used to estimate the pedes-
trian delay at other intersections. For instance,
PDE-12 means the model trained using data from
intersection 1, was used to estimate the pedestrian
delay at intersection 2. Similarly, we developed
PDE-13, PDE-14, etc.
 Step 3: In order to evaluate the accuracy of the
prediction, RMSE and MAE were calculated.
 Step 4: To compare the performance of the trans-
ferred model, the HCM method was also used as
the base comparison method. It is worth mention-
ing that for the HCM method, the data of each
intersection were used to estimate pedestrian delay
at that intersection; therefore, all the values in each
column of Table 8 have similar RMSE and MAE at
each column.
The results of the disaggregated prediction transferabil-
ity test are summarized in Table 8 (the values in Table 8
are based on the average delay over the data collection
period). The rows in Table 8 show the intersection used
for training the model, and the columns show the intersec-
tion used for prediction. The values in the parenthesis are
the prediction accuracy using the HCM method. Below
are two examples of how to read this table:
and the RMSE of using the HCM method to esti-
mate pedestrian delay on W Ina Rd. & N
Shannon Rd is 40.24 s.
2. “14.75 (32.75)” in Table 8 shows that the MAE of
predicting pedestrian delay on W Ina Rd. & N
Camino De La Tierra using a mixture model
trained for W Ina Rd. & N La Ca~ nada Dr is
14.75 s and the MAE of using the HCM method
to estimate pedestrian delay on W Ina Rd. & N
Camino De La Tierra is 32.75 s.
The results provide convincing arguments that the
model trained for one intersection could be used to
accurately predict pedestrian delay on other intersec-
tions. For all the intersections, the values of the trans-
ferred model RMSE and MAE were extremely lower
than the HCM method. Meaning that even if transporta-
tion agencies estimate only one PDE for one intersection
and use it to predict the pedestrian delay on other inter-
sections, they are able to achieve a more reliable and
accurate estimation.
The results of the disaggregated prediction transferabil-
ity test showed that the proposed method is transferable to
other intersections with similar specifications. Therefore,
to save time and money, transportation agencies could use
the trained model for one intersection and estimate delay
at other intersections, with similar specifications.

1. “17.64 (40.24)” in Table 8 shows that the RMSE

Application and policy implications
for predicting pedestrian delay on W Ina Rd. & N
Shannon Rd. using a mixture model trained for Walking and bicycling are critical components in the
W Ina Rd. & N Camino De La Tierra is 17.64 s, development of healthy and sustainable communities.
16 A. KARIMPOUR ET AL.
These two groups of users should have the highest
priority because they are the most vulnerable users in
the transportation system. One of the major deterrents
is the inordinate delay they experience while crossing
multilane arterials at signalized intersections in major
cities. High delays at intersections, particularly when
vehicle traffic volume is low, can lead to frustration
and risky behaviors.
Traditionally, transportation strategies have been pri-
marily focused on improving mobility and maximizing
the speed and flow of motorists on the roadway, rather
than considering the value of time for nonmotorists. It
has been postulated that pedestrians’ level of frustration
grows when the delay exceeds 30–50 s at a signalized
intersection (Guo et al., 2012; Vallyon et al., 2011).
Using the proposed method, system operators can easily
determine the proportion of time when pedestrians
experience delays larger than a predefined threshold.
For example, pedestrians crossing the major street at
the intersection of W Ina Rd. & N Camino De La
Tierra experience delays greater than 30 and 50 s, 70%
and 51% of the time, respectively. Similarly, at W Ina
Rd. & N Shannon Rd., W Ina Rd. & N La Cholla
Blvd., and W Ina Rd. & N La Ca~ nada Dr., pedestrians
experience delays greater than 30 s, 73%, 85%, and 86%
of the time, respectively. Furthermore, pedestrians at
these intersections experience delays greater than 50 s,
51%, 65%, and 66% of the time respectively. The high
proportions of pedestrians experiencing delays greater
than existing thresholds defined in the literature indi-
cate that these intersections may be prone to higher
risk-taking behaviors. The methods proposed in this
study allow system operators to quantitatively assess
existing delays and enact changes to incorporate the
better serve pedestrian needs.
Conclusion
Delay is one of the most used indices for signalized
intersections that quantify the intersection operation
level of service. Therefore, it is important to estimate
and optimize delay for all modes of transportation,
including pedestrian delay at signalized intersections.
The pedestrian delay is important to safety specialists
because it is closely linked to pedestrian signal com-
pliance. A higher amount of pedestrian delay will
increase pedestrian frustration and noncompliance.
In this study, a novel method based on finite mixture
modeling was proposed to indirectly estimate pedestrian
delay using high-resolution event-based data collected at
the intersections. Initially, the proposed method was
used to identify the specific variables that can best
explain the pedestrian delay function. Then, Gaussian
mixture modeling was applied to characterize pedestrian
delay distributions as a function of these specific varia-
bles. Four intersections on Ina Road were selected as
the study locations and individual models were trained
for each intersection. Initially, it was identified that
cycle length and traffic flow were the most appropriate
variables that could explain the pedestrian delay func-
tion for three out of four intersections and cycle length
and effective pedestrian green duration were the most
appropriate variables that could explain the pedestrian
delay function for the other intersection. The results of
estimating the pedestrian delay using the trained model
at each intersection showed the proposed method was
able to capture and track the actual delay fluctuation
during the day with an average 10% of mean-absolute-
error. Further, the result of the test of disaggregated
prediction showed that the proposed method was trans-
ferable to other intersections with similar specifications.
The application of the proposed method can be
beneficial to transportation agencies in three capaci-
ties: (1) provide a more reliable, robust, and accurate
approach for estimating pedestrian delay at signalized
intersections where sensors are not available to collect
pedestrian delay, (2) a tool to develop pedestrian delay
PDFs for analyzing the risk of pedestrians violating
the signal, and (3) train a network-wide model for
estimating pedestrian delay at all intersections without
the need to use additional resources. Furthermore, the
presented transferability results can be advantageous
to transportation agencies within Arizona and urban
areas with similar characteristics by providing insight
into what model specifications may provide the best
pedestrian delay prediction accuracy.
Some of the potential limitations of this study are
as follows. Due to the data limitation, the transferabil-
ity of the model was only tested on intersections in
Pima County, Arizona. Additionally, only cycle length,
pedestrian effective green duration, and traffic flow
were used as variables in the pedestrian delay function
based on data available from the sensors. While the
limitations discussed here should not have a signifi-
cant impact on the results of this study, additional
research should be conducted to extend the study’s
findings. More studies would be needed to compre-
hensively evaluate if the proposed model could be trans-
ferred to other jurisdictions and counties. In addition,
other variables could be considered as the potential vari-
ables for estimating pedestrian delay. Furthermore, the
behavior of pedestrian delay while accounting for het-
erogeneity (pedestrian-delay-specific, component-specific,
etc.) should be considered in future endeavors. For the

transferability section, due to data availability, transfer-
ability could only be assessed within-county. Future
research using data from other MPOs, states, etc., is rec-
ommended to further validate the transferability results
presented in the current study.
Acknowledgments
The authors would also like to thank the Pima County
Department of Transportation for data support.
Funding
This project was funded by the National Institute for
Transportation and Communities (NITC; grant number
1298) a U.S. DOT University Transportation Center.
ORCID
Abolfazl Karimpour http://orcid.org/0000-0002-
8707-6408
Jason C. Anderson http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9189-5345
Sirisha Kothuri http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2952-169X
Yao-Jan Wu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0456-7915
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