Reducing the Environmental Impact of Midblock Crossing

Accommodating pedestrians crossing midblock has been shown to have harmful environmental consequences because of increased fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions. Somewhat surprisingly, no studies were devoted to mitigating the environmental impact of midblock crossing. Our main contribution is to propose schemes that mitigate the increased fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions due to pedestrian midblock crossing by leveraging information about the location and expected duration of the crossing. This information is shared, in a timely manner, with approaching cars through the various types of vehicular networks. We evaluated the impact of car decisions on fuel consumption and emissions by exploring potential trajectories that cars may take as a result of messages received. Our extensive simulations showed that the timely dissemination of pedestrian crossing information to approaching vehicles can reduce fuel consumption and emissions by up to 16.7%.