EXPERIMENT STUDY ON EFFECT OF SPACE CONDITION ON CROWD FLOW

Abstract

Introduction Many previous studies have revealed characteristic of crowd flow due to a difference in spatial configuration by measuring the walking speed and density in public place. However, it is difficult to determine whether the cause of the change in the pedestrian behavior is bottleneck or local congestion. This is because the measured spatial conditions, walking situation is the fact that not described in detail. This paper focused on the specific flow where the path with bottleneck and merging or without of them using full scale experiment. Purpose The purpose of this study measures walking speed and the density from an experiment and clarifies the characteristic of crowd flow a change of the spatial conditions. In addition, it's considered about the influence on specific flow from the observed crowd flow. Methods By establishing the temporary compartment which is shaped like corridor within the facility, changing the shape, the width of the corridor, the width of neck and the density, the crowd walking experiment by 96 participants was performed. The experimental situation is photographed by the video camera installed on the ceiling part. In Case A, the walls were constructed on both sides and the corridor was straight. There were 3 kinds of the width of corridor. In Case B, in the center within the area of Case A1, there was a bottleneck, where there were 3 kinds of the width of corridor and 2 kinds of the width of bottlenecks. In case C, the merging occurs in the area of Case A. In Case D, the width of corridor was 6.0m, in the center of which there was a bottleneck. Under all the conditions, we attempted the experiment three times per each condition. In Case A4, the width of corridor was 6.0m, in the center of which there was a bottleneck. Under all the conditions, we attempted the experiment three times per each condition. Results The part of results of this study are as follows; - When focusing on the trajectory before neck through, the wedge-shaped trajectory of the participants was drawn from 2,400mm in front of the neck toward the bottleneck. In the Case B-5 which has the corridor with narrow width, the wedge shape of the trajectory became moderate and the participants moved substantially straight toward the neck - A pedestrian in the merging front of path walks while decelerating walking speed by occurrence of congestion by merging. - After passing through an opening, when it's wide space, a pedestrian maintains each own personal space and approaches free speed. Conclusion When the one direction crowd flow in path bottleneck and merging occurs, the specific flow in the path reduced response to width of the path and width of the bottleneck. When passing through the opening, the specific flow is changed in accordance with the crowd density of the previous bottleneck and forward spatial configuration.