Modeling walking behavior of pedestrian groups with floor field cellular automaton approach

Abstract

Walking in groups is very common in a realistic walking environment. An extended floor field cellular automaton (CA) model is therefore proposed to describe the walking behavior of pedestrian groups. This model represents the motion of pedestrian groups in a realistic way. The simulation results reveal that the walking behavior of groups has an important but negative influence on pedestrian flow dynamics, especially when the density is at a high level. The presence of pedestrian groups retards the emergence of lane formation and increases the instability of operation of pedestrian flow. Moreover, the average velocity and volume of pedestrian flow are significantly reduced due to the group motion. Meanwhile, the parameter-sensitive analysis suggests that pedestrian groups should make a compromise between efficient movement and staying coherent with a certain spatial structure when walking in a dense crowd.