Trajectory Data Analysis on the Spatial and Temporal Influence of Pedestrian Flow on Path Planning Decision

Jeongyun Kim,Hwasoo Yeo,Michel Bierlaire,Sehyun Tak

doi:10.3390/su122410419

Abstract

The modeling of walking behavior and design of walk-friendly urban pathways have been of interest to many researchers over the past decades. One of the major issues in pedestrian modeling is path planning decision-making in a dynamic walking environment with different pedestrian flows. While previous studies have agreed that pedestrian flow influences path planning, only a few studies have dealt with the empirical data to show the relationship between pedestrian flow and path planning behavior. This study introduces a new methodology for analyzing pedestrian trajectory data to find the dynamic walking conditions that influence the path planning decision. The comparison of the pedestrians’ path shows that the higher proportion of opposite flows are, the greater they influence the path selection decision. In this study, we investigate the relationship between the opposite flow changes and path planning behavior and find the spatial and temporal ranges of the opposite flow that affects the path planning behavior. Lastly, we find the ratio of pedestrians that update their paths with respect to the opposite flow rate.

Highlights

Walking is one of the main modes used for short trips, and it can serve as a connection to other modes in multimodal trips
If the flow rate is beyond the 75th percentile of flow distribution, we classify it as a high flow rate, if not, it is considered as others
This paper introduces a new methodology for investigating dynamic walking conditions that influence pedestrians’ path selection decisions

Summary

Introduction

Walking is one of the main modes used for short trips, and it can serve as a connection to other modes in multimodal trips. Considering individual choices in diverse and dynamic walking environments, pedestrian behavior modeling is a very complicated task. To model such complicated behavior, pedestrian dynamics theories describe multiple types of decisions following a hierarchical structure: strategic, tactical, and operational [4,5]. Activities are scheduled at the strategic level, whereas the order of the activity execution, the choice of the activity area, and the route choice are performed at the tactical level. Instantaneous decisions such as collision avoidance are taken at the operational level

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