Automatic Driving Passage Strategies for Signal-Free Pedestrian Crosswalks Using an Improved Responsibility-Sensitive Safety Model

Signal-free crosswalks are a high incidence area for pedestrian–autonomous vehicles (AV) conflicts, but there is no comprehensive and reasonable solution for AVs to safely and efficiently navigate through these conflict scenarios. To address this problem, this study proposes a responsibility-sensitive safety (RSS) model specifically for pedestrian–AV conflicts in signal-free crosswalks. The model is based on the principles and contents of existing RSS models and proposes a safe AV access strategy for hazardous scenarios. The effectiveness of the strategy is verified by an integrated SUMO simulation taking into account the vehicle motion state, driving conservatism, and safety. The results show that the proposed automatic driving access strategy based on the improved RSS model effectively improves the driving stability and safety of the AV through the signal-free crosswalk. This study provides a solution to the pedestrian–AV conflict in signal-free crosswalks on road sections, which can provide a reference for the further promotion and application of the RSS model in the field of autonomous driving.