Understanding pedestrian movement with baggage on stairway: Insights from controlled experiments

Abstract

Understanding the movement of pedestrians carrying baggage is crucial for predicting and enhancing the level of service on stairways, especially for public gathering places such as train stations and airports. In this study, we conducted a series of well-controlled experiments on experimental stairways, categorizing them into two main types: individual movement and single-file pedestrian flow. We investigated the impact of gender and baggage-laden ratios on pedestrians’ free speed. Our findings reveal that gender and the laden ratios of baggage play a pivotal role in determining pedestrians’ movement speed during individual ascent or descent. We then explored the dynamics of single-file pedestrian flow, considering various baggage-laden ratios (ranging from 0% to 100%). The results demonstrate complex and nonlinear spatiotemporal patterns, characterized by stop-and-go waves. Notably, headway distribution varies significantly across different baggage-laden ratios, indicating heterogeneity in pedestrian behavior. We identified two distinct regimes in headway-speed and density-speed relations: the “free regime” (where pedestrians move unimpeded) and the “constraint regime” (where baggage and spatial limitations affect movement). The experimental data could be used not only for the design of stairways for normal and emergency situations but also as input for pedestrian simulation models to benchmark existing simulators.