Fundamental diagrams for pedestrian traffic flow in controlled experiments

Abstract

Heavy casualties in stampede accidents in recent years have brought new challenge to crowd management and public safety as well. Therefore, a series of controlled experiments were conducted to investigate traffic dynamics of pedestrians in this paper. The fundamental diagrams for unidirectional flow, bidirectional counter flow, bidirectional cross flow and four-directional cross flow are surveyed by using the improved Voronoi diagram measurement method. The maximum specific flow and the optimal density are obtained from the density–flow relation. Furthermore, difference of fundamental diagrams for different pedestrian flows is also discussed. Evolution of individual density and individual velocity in the Voronoi cell is explored and the dangerous area for pedestrians is identified. Movement efficiency under different densities is investigated when passing through the intersection. The study is helpful to develop a modular approach that serves as a basis for the planning and evaluation of large scale public events.