Analysis of headway-velocity relation in one and two-dimensional pedestrian flows

Abstract

In this paper, the relation between headway and velocity in one and two-dimensional pedestrian flows is investigated by a series of controlled experiments. Three types of headway between two pedestrians from the same direction, opposite directions and cross directions are classified and calculated by using the proposed method. Two linear regimes including constrained regime and free regime in the headway-velocity relation are found for homogeneous pedestrians in different flows. Differences among parameters such as adaptation time, critical headway and free velocity are analyzed in different scenarios. In the constrained regime, individuals react faster when confronting pedestrians from the same direction, while they spend more time adapting the influence caused by the opposite and crossing pedestrians. Besides, pedestrians need to keep a larger distance away from others with different directions to realize free movement. Moreover, the headway-velocity relation obtained from experiments can be used to validate and extend the first-order models in the future. This study is helpful to better understand the characteristics of pedestrian movement from another perspective.