Recent Development in Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics: Bibliographic Analyses, Collaboration Patterns, and Future Directions

Abstract

This paper focuses on the bibliographic analyses and collaboration patterns in the field of pedestrian and evacuation dynamics (PED) research covering the period of 1991–2017. The statistic analyses of most productive authors, institutions, countries/regions, and cited papers, as well as keywords and their trends, are conducted based on the data set collected from the Web of Science. The most productive and high-impact authors, institutions, and countries are identified. The results of bibliographic analyses show that Europe researchers dominate and guide the research of PED in that it not only has the most papers but also has six out of the ten most-cited papers. Helbing Dirk is an influential author in the research of PED field in that he has five out of the ten most-cited papers. Chinese institutions account for 70% of the top 10 most productive institution and three among the top 5 ranks. Meanwhile, researchers from China and USA have published nearly half of the papers in this field. In addition, we generate four networks, i.e., coauthorship network, coinstitution network, cocountry/region network, and document cocitation network to analyze collaboration patterns and evolution of PED research at different levels. The software of Citespace is adopted to visualize the topological interactions among authors, institutions, and countries/regions as well as document cocitations. The degree, betweenness, burst, and PageRank are selected and measured as indicators to identify the key nodes. Finally, some future directions are put forward. The results of this paper provide a better understanding of patterns, trends, and other important factors as a basis for directing research activities, sharing knowledge, and collaborating in the field of PED research.