Dynamic analysis of single-file pedestrian movement with maintaining social distancing in times of pandemic

Abstract

In order to uncover the characteristics of pedestrian movement under different social distancing measures, we performed a series of single-file experiments considering two types of social distancing measures, namely 1 m and 2 m, and compared them with normal experiments conducted before Covid-19. Firstly, the findings indicate that social distancing measures do make pedestrians keep a greater distance, but there are social distance violations. When the density is greater than 0.23 m−1, pedestrians have more violations under the measure of 2 m than that of 1 m at the same density. Although the typical stop-and-go wave is still observed in social distancing experiments, the increase in social distancing causes pedestrian stopping behavior to occur at lower density, and shortens the density range of the transition from free flow to jammed flow. Moreover, the headway-speed relation under social distancing measures is not a simple horizontal displacement of that under normal conditions. Although their free speeds are similar, the increase in social distancing makes pedestrians need longer adaption time and more space to transform the motion state. Finally, fundamental diagrams are obtained, and the maximum specific flows for social distancing of 1 m and 2 m is 0.62 s−1 and 0.53 s−1, respectively. Apart from the comparison with normal conditions, the comparison with the two-dimensional social distancing experiments shows that pedestrians are more able to comply with the prescribed social distance and stop less in single-file movement. These enrichments offer empirical data of pedestrian movement under different social distancing measures and benefit pedestrian modeling during pandemics.