Modeling and Solving of Multiple Conflict Situations in Shared Spaces

When streets are designed according to the shared space principle, road users tend to interact spontaneously and to negotiate priority with each other by adapting their trajectory and speed. Despite the success of this design principle in the recent years, traffic engineers still cannot rely on microsimulation tools for shared spaces, which would be extremely useful to compute performance indicators describing safety and quality of traffic. In view of this, in the previous research the authors have developed a three-layered social force-based model, capable to simulate the operation of shared space environments. The aim of the current work is to extend the model by including conflict solving strategies for multiple conflict situations, i.e., conflicts which involve more than two road users. A methodological approach based on aggregated probabilities is proposed to determine road users’ behavioral strategy. The goodness of the model is shown by means of an observed situation involving multiple pedestrians and motorists.