Walking performance of pedestrians in corridors under different visibility conditions

Abstract

Visibility is an important factor affecting pedestrian movement and safe evacuation. To investigate the walking characteristics of pedestrians under limited visibilities, a novel measurement method by changing the light transmittance in a suitable lighting environment is proposed to achieve different visibility levels. A series of individual movement experiments were performed under the quantitative control of visibility condition. Stoop-walking behavior was observed at low visibility levels. Besides, pedestrians would stretch out their arms or feet to explore the surrounding environment under invisible conditions. Based on the high-precise trajectories, it is found that the acceleration and relaxation time of individuals increase with the improvement of visual condition. The walking speed of males is significantly larger than that of females at the same visibility level. Moreover, individual speed increases with the improvement of visibility level, but no significant difference is found when the visual distance is larger than 6 m. In addition, individuals prefer to change movement direction rather than reduce the speed to avoid the frontal obstacle or pedestrians under limited visibilities. Furthermore, comparison between previous studies and our work is made, and their differences are also elaborated. The study can help to quantitatively predict pedestrian’s speed and develop movement models for limited visibility situations.