The movement characteristics of pedestrians on a single-file track at the uphill and downhill conditions

Abstract

Ramps, as very common building structures, are widely used in railway stations, subways, shopping malls and other public places. In order to study the movement characteristics of pedestrians both uphill and downhill, we present a group of single-file movement experiments of pedestrians on a ramp with a 9° slope. It is found that in the free flow state, the average speed uphill and downhill is about 1.1 m s−1, while the average speed on the flat surface is about 1.4 m s−1. As the density increases, the critical densities at which the speed of pedestrians begins to decrease going uphill and downhill are both slightly higher than that on the flat surface. We also propose a step-based model considering different step frequencies and step lengths of pedestrians to simulate the movement on the ramp. Compared with the experimental results, it is shown that the model can reproduce the pedestrian’s walking behavior on the ramp well.