The integration of Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) into Cooperative Intelligent Transportation System (C-ITS) is essential to enhance road safety, however, it introduces significant challenges related to network scalability. Evaluating their integration in real-world field testing is still limited given the related costs, complexity, and logistical constraints, therefore, simulation plays an essential role in this area of research. This thesis extends the VaN3Twin-CARLA co-simulation framework to support and investigate passive and active participation of VRUs in cooperative scenarios. The contributions of this work are as follows: (i) The integration of VRUs into the OpenCDA framework, enabling realistic perception of VRUs; (ii) the implementation of ETSI-compliant communication services, allowing VRUs to actively participate by transmitting Vulnerable Road User Awareness Messages (VAMs); (iii) the implementation of a perception-based clustering mechanism for pedestrians, to evaluate its effect on Collective Perception Messages (CPM) size and channel load; (iv) the assessment of network impact of connected VRUs under varying densities and penetration rate.