Pedestrian Flow Characteristics Research Articles

The analysis of pedestrian flow in the smart city by improved DWA with robot assistance

With the acceleration of urbanization in China, the urban population continues to grow, leading to frequent occurrences of crowded public spaces, which in turn trigger traffic congestion and even safety accidents. In order to more effectively control pedestrian flow, enhance the efficiency and safety of public spaces, this experiment conducts in-depth research and improvement on the traditional Dynamic Window Approach (DWA), and applies it to the fine control of pedestrian flow. Specifically, this study comprehensively reviews and analyzes the characteristics of pedestrian traffic flow and the working principles of traditional DWA. Based on this, the shortcomings of traditional DWA in dealing with complex pedestrian flow scenarios are identified, and targeted improvement solutions are proposed. The core of this improvement scheme lies in the introduction of a new evaluation function, enabling DWA to more accurately balance various factors in the decision-making process, including pedestrian movement speed, direction, and spatial distribution. Subsequently, the improved DWA is validated through simulation experiments. The experimental scenario is set in an area of 18 m*18 m, and compared with traditional DWA, the improved DWA shows significant advantages in trajectory length and travel time. Specifically, the trajectory length of the traditional DWA robot is 19.4 m, with a required time of 34.8 s, while the trajectory length of the improved DWA robot is shortened to 18.7 m, and the time is reduced to 18.6 s. This result fully demonstrates the effectiveness of the improved DWA in optimizing pedestrian flow control. The improved DWA proposed in this study not only has strong scientific validity but also demonstrates high efficiency in practical applications. This study has important reference value for improving the safety of urban public spaces and improving pedestrian traffic flow conditions, and provides new ideas for the further development of pedestrian flow control technology in the future.

A quantitative analysis on bidirectional pedestrian flows through angled corridors

This paper investigates turning characteristics of bidirectional pedestrian flows with controlled experiment under laboratory condition. Compared with straight walking bidirectional flow, pedestrian lane width of turning bidirectional flow narrows after turning, which indicates that pedestrians are suppressed a lot by the opposite flow when turning. The fundamental diagrams are almost the same in the density range between 1.5 ped/m2 and 3.2 ped/m2 for the straight and turning bidirectional flows. However, the density, velocity and specific flow profiles of the turning bidirectional flow are different from those of straight bidirectional flow. The density in the turning area for θ = 45° scene is larger compared with that for θ = 90° and 135° scene, and the maximal local density reaches 6 ped/m2. The region where pedestrian lanes are formed by pedestrians leaving the turning area has relatively large values of velocity and specific flow. Furthermore, position-velocity relation and the cumulative distribution of time lapse in the corridor are investigated. The results obtained can offer more insights into pedestrian dynamics of the turning bidirectional flow.

Evaluating the pedestrian level of service for varying trip purposes using machine learning algorithms

The pedestrians’ feeling of comfort while walking on footpaths varies according to the time of day, environment, and the purpose of the trip. The quality of service offered by pedestrian facilities such as walkways, intersections, and public places is evaluated by the Pedestrian level of service (PLOS) and has been measured from time to time, to upgrade and maintain the sustainable travel choice of people. This paper aims to focus on the level of service based on three main trip purposes such as work, education, and recreation, while considering various path characteristics and pedestrian flow characteristics that affect the pedestrian’s feeling of comfort on the walkways. The data has been collected using pedestrian questionnaire surveys and pedestrian sensors in the Melbourne central business district and the significant factors that influence the PLOS for each trip purpose will be chosen using the Mutual Information gain, which is found to be different for each trip purpose. The major influencing factors that affect the PLOS will be used to develop machine learning models for three trip purposes separately using Random Forest and Light-GBM algorithm in Python. The accuracy of prediction using the light GBM model is 0.74 for education, 0.80 for recreation, and 0.70 for work trip purposes. It is found using SHAP which stands for Shapely Additive explanations that the factors such as interpersonal distance, distance from vehicles, construction sites, vehicle volume, traffic noise, and footpath surface are the most influencing variables that affect the PLOS based on three different trip purposes.

Enhanced Operation of Ice Storage System for Peak Load Management in Shopping Malls across Diverse Climate Zones

There exists a notable research gap concerning the application of ice storage systems in shopping mall settings at the urban scale. The characteristics of large pedestrian flow, high energy consumption, and high peak loads in shopping malls make their advantages in energy conservation. This study researches sustainable cooling solutions by undertaking an economic analysis of the ice storage systems within shopping malls across 11 distinct cities, each system operating under varied electricity pricing frameworks. The methodology begins with creating baseline mall models using AutoBPS and refining them with OpenStudio. Before starting to adjust the model, measured data were used to verify the accuracy of the baseline model, the coefficient of variation of the root mean square error (CVRMSE) and normalized mean bias error (NMBE) metrics were calculated for the model energy consumption, with CVRMSE values of 8.6% and NMBE values of 1.57% for the electricity consumption, while the metrics for the gas consumption were 12.9% and 1.24%, respectively. The study extends its inquiry to encompass comprehensive economic evaluations based on the unique electricity pricing of each city. This rigorous assessment discerns the relationship between capacity, operational strategies, and economic performance. Particularly striking are the so-called peak-shaving and valley-filling effects verified in regions characterized by lower latitudes and substantial cooling loads. The interaction between ice storage capacity and operational schedules significantly influences both economic viability and cooling efficiency. Based on the temporal dynamics of time-of-use (TOU) power pricing, a finely calibrated operational schedule for the ice storage system is proposed. This operational strategy entails charging during periods of reduced electricity pricing to undertake cooling loads during peak electricity pricing intervals, culminating in substantial reductions in electricity charges of buildings. Moreover, the strategic reallocation of energy, characterized by a reduced chiller capacity and a corresponding elevation in ice storage system capacity, augments cooling efficiency and diminishes cooling-related electricity expenses. This study offers valuable insights for optimizing and deploying ice storage systems in diverse climatic regions, particularly for shopping malls. As a guiding reference, this paper provides stakeholders with a framework to reasonably apply and adjust ice storage systems, ushering in an era of energy-efficient and environmentally conscious cooling solutions tailored to shopping mall environments.

Open space dynamics during coronavirus disease-2019

Although numerous studies have been carried out to examine the general trend of urban mobility during coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), there is not enough research on changes in pedestrian behavioural characteristics and crowd dynamics in public spaces. Understanding and monitoring such changes are critical for the better management and design of public open space in case of future outbreaks of infectious diseases. To fill this gap, pedestrian movements are tracked and analysed with deep learning-based video analytics based on anonymised video footage along a major promenade in Hong Kong before and during COVID-19. Specifically, comparisons were made on pedestrian-flow characteristics, pedestrian activities and social distancing. Then, this study examines the dynamics of pedestrian crowding under different scenarios, using agent-based simulation. Model results suggest that the public space was characterised by fewer visitors, a higher average walking speed, a higher percentage of people exercising and a lower percentage of people carrying out stationary activities during COVID-19. In addition, a higher level of voluntary social distancing was observed. Several hot spots for pedestrian crowding were also identified. Learning from the above, it is suggested that multifunctional public space should be designed; and data-driven visitor management systems should be established to prepare for different scenarios in future cities.

Logical Topology Inference via CPGCN Joint Optimizing With Pedestrian Re-Id.

With the rise of artificial intelligence, deep learning has become the main research method of pedestrian recognition re-identification (re-id). However, most of the existing researches usually just determine the retrieval order based on the geographical location of cameras, which ignore the spatio-temporal logic characteristics of pedestrian flow. Furthermore, most of these methods rely on common object detection to detect and match pedestrians directly, which will separate the logical connection between videos from different cameras. In this research, a novel pedestrian re-identification model assisted by logical topological inference is proposed, which includes: 1) a joint optimization mechanism of pedestrian re-identification and multicamera logical topology inference, which makes the multicamera logical topology provides the retrieval order and the confidence for re-identification. And meanwhile, the results of pedestrian re-identification as a feedback modify logical topological inference; 2) a dynamic spatio-temporal information driving logical topology inference method via conditional probability graph convolution network (CPGCN) with random forest-based transition activation mechanism (RF-TAM) is proposed, which focuses on the pedestrian's walking direction at different moments; and 3) a pedestrian group cluster graph convolution network (GC-GCN) is designed to measure the correlation between embedded pedestrian features. Some experimental analyses and real scene experiments on datasets CUHK-SYSU, PRW, SLP, and UJS-reID indicate that the designed model can achieve a better logical topology inference with an accuracy of 87.3% and achieve the top-1 accuracy of 77.4% and the mAP accuracy of 74.3% for pedestrian re-identification.

A comparative study on pedestrian flow through bottlenecks between flood evacuation and land evacuation

In a flood, people may be forced to evacuate in water until reaching a secure shelter. Understanding the characteristics of pedestrian flow in water is therefore of utmost importance. Some researchers studied individual walking speed in water, whereas it is still rare to study pedestrian and evacuation dynamics, e.g., characteristics of pedestrian flow through a bottleneck. In this paper, evacuation experiments through bottlenecks are conducted in 0.60-m-deep water, with 97 volunteers with an average age of 21.7 years participating. The results are compared with those on land. It is shown that the flow rate in water is lower than that on land, with a difference varying with bottleneck width b as ΔJ=0.60b−0.04ped/s. The average specific flow rate in water is 0.43ped/(m·s) lower than that on land. Based on the relation of time headway–width, density–width, and speed–width, threshold widths for the flow transition from “interrupted” to “flowing” stages are 1.3 m in water and 1.0 m on land respectively. Compared with that on land, during “interrupted” stage in water, stop behavior is more frequent, the speed near the exit is 0.22 m/s lower, and the speed-up point is closer to the exit. During “flowing” stage, continuity of the pedestrian flow at exit is inferior in water compared to that on land, a 0.2–0.3 m wider exit is required in water to achieve similar continuity on land. These findings may provide valuable insights into emergency management during flood evacuation.

Application of Minecraft in the study of evacuation dynamics under fire emergency conditions

Fire emergencies pose a great threat to human health and cause numerous deaths in modern buildings. Minecraft has proved to be a useful tool in children’s education and artificial intelligence studies, but no research has used Minecraft for evacuation experiments under fire emergency. In this study, we conducted a series of evacuation experiments under both normal and fire-emergency conditions in Minecraft, which can provide 3D visual effects and allows for the simultaneous participation of multiple participants. A new software program, MCTrack, was developed to accurately recognise pedestrian locations from the Minecraft database and then automatically draw the trajectories and fundamental diagrams. The results showed that in the fire emergency scenarios, the pedestrians exhibited a greater detour angle and avoided the fire in advance, rather than detouring only when they were close to the fire. The times to reach maximum density and velocity in the fire emergency scenario in a square room were delayed compared with the normal-condition scenario because of the longer travel distance caused by the detour, and the maximum velocity was slightly increased owing to the pushing behaviour. Fire evacuations in a corridor-like room were characterised by the formation of a self-organised queue and sequential passage through the exit, which led to a narrower and more concentrated distribution in the fundamental diagrams. Finally, the commercial egress simulators Pathfinder and AnyLogic were used to simulate the same scenarios to evaluate the experimental results of Minecraft. The results indicated that Minecraft has feasibility in providing realistic pedestrian behaviour and crowd flow characteristics during evacuations.

A comparative experimental study on the influence of bottleneck width on evacuation characteristics of pedestrian flow in funnel shape bottleneck and normal bottleneck

Previous studies have proposed that increasing bottleneck width help increase evacuation efficiency in normal bottleneck evacuation. However, the effect of funnel shape bottleneck coupled with bottleneck width on evacuation efficiency is still unknown. To improve the understanding of the influence of bottleneck width in funnel shape bottleneck evacuation on the movement characteristics of pedestrians, the funnel shape bottleneck evacuation experiment is carried out in this study. The movement characteristics of pedestrians passing through the funnel shape bottleneck versus the normal bottleneck are compared from the aspects of trajectories, fundamental diagrams, density profiles, speed distribution, flow, time interval, and quiescent time. Logarithmic function fits the relation between density and speed well both for funnel shape bottleneck and for normal bottleneck evacuation. Under the same density, the funnel shape bottleneck allows pedestrians to move faster than the normal bottleneck. For the same bottleneck width, the density in the funnel shape bottleneck is smaller than that in the normal bottleneck. The flow increases linearly with the increasing bottleneck width both in funnel shape bottleneck and in the normal bottleneck. When the bottleneck width is smaller than 1.31 m, the flow of funnel shape bottleneck is higher than that of the normal bottleneck. The funnel shape bottleneck reduces the occurrence and the lasting time of quiescent behaviors. The evacuation time decreases piecewise linearly with the increasing bottleneck width both for the funnel shape bottleneck and the normal bottleneck. The comparisons reveal that the funnel shape bottleneck increases evacuation efficiency under the smaller bottleneck width. The results obtained in this study describe the difference between the funnel shape bottleneck and the normal bottleneck, which is beneficial to safety managers and pedestrian facilities designers.

A Signal Optimization Model of Adjacent Closely Spaced Intersections Which Optimizes Pedestrian Crossing

Adjacent closely spaced intersections with characteristics of short link distance and high pedestrian flow are primarily located in high-density urban areas. To address the problems of queue overflow, poor traffic operation, and high pedestrian travel delays, a pedestrian-motor vehicle signal optimization method for adjacent closely spaced intersections was proposed in this paper. First, the traffic flow entering the closely spaced intersections is divided into nonarterial and arterial flow categories to establish a delay model of pedestrian crossing. Then, a pedestrian crossing delay model based on pedestrian demand is constructed according to pedestrian crossing time and a space diagram. An optimization model for pedestrians and vehicles at adjacent closely spaced intersections is established, and an artificial intelligence algorithm is used to optimize this model. Finally, a selected case intersection is optimized. The results show that compared with a traditional single optimization method, vehicle delay decreased about 4%, 13.8%, 17.1%, and 25.9% and total pedestrian delay decreased by 3%, 15%, 25%, and 31%, respectively, for the four proposed scenarios.

Influence of movement motivations on spatial and temporal features: a case study of preschool children passing through a right-angled corridor

Pedestrian dynamics of preschool children in facilities has become a rapidly growing research topic due to its significant implications for children’s safety. This work investigates the movement characteristics of 40 preschool children passing through a 1.0 m wide right-angled corridor under low and high motivations. Under low and high motivation, preschool children were asked to walk through the corridor as normal and run through the corridor quickly as if in an emergency, respectively. The fundamental diagrams, velocity directions, passing positions, and spatial distributions are studied. Individual speed decreases with increasing density, both in normal and emergency conditions. In the turning region, children prefer running near the inner boundaries but walking along the outer boundaries. Running children keep a greater distance both from the boundaries and from other children, compared to walking children. The findings could help enhance the comprehension of the movement characteristics of preschool children. Highlights The pedestrian flow characteristics of high- and low-motivated children passing through a right-angled corridor are compared. The children prefer walking along the outer boundaries and running along the inner boundaries around the turning region. Compared to walking children, running children keep a greater distance from the boundaries and other children.

A review on passenger emergency evacuation from multimodal transportation hubs

Multimodal transportation hubs serve as transfer points with the function of collecting, transferring, and distributing passengers and play a significant role in the entire multimodal transportation network. In an emergency, the development of an effective and efficient emergency evacuation strategy to evacuate passengers from multimodal transportation hubs is very important. This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive review on passenger emergency evacuations from multimodal transportation hubs, summarize the achievements, identify gaps in existing literature, thus to lay a solid foundation for future studies. This paper first reviewed studies on evacuee behavior characteristics in emergency evacuations, including pedestrian characteristics, pedestrian behavior characteristics, and pedestrian flow characteristics. Then evacuation models, including pedestrian evacuation models and multimodal transportation evacuation models, were investigated. In addition, a retrospective analysis was carried out for evacuation simulation. It is found that while many studies have been conducted on passenger emergency evacuations from multimodal transportation hubs, most of them focus more on evacuating pedestrians from inside to outside of hub buildings; the studies on evacuation at multimodal transfer points are limited. It is also found that most existing studies tried to establish a general model to handle all types of emergency evacuations; in fact, a model would be more efficient if it is just established for a specific emergency and for a specific type of hubs. Also, existing data collection methods may collect biased data; new data collection methods need to be explored to increase the accuracy of data collection. Future study directions include the evacuation at multimodal transfer points, interactive effects between individual pedestrian behavior and pedestrian group behavior, more specific types of emergency evacuations, more accurate data collection methods, and tradeoffs between cost and benefit in emergency evacuations. • Reviewed studies on passenger emergency evacuation from multimodal transportation hubs. • Summarized findings on evacuee behavior, models, and simulations of emergency evacuation studies and analyzed the gaps. • Proposed further studies directions for passenger emergency evacuation from multimodal transportation hubs.

Heterogeneous Pedestrian Traffic Flow Modelling at Signalised Intersections

Different types of pedestrians exhibit different speed characteristics and heterogeneity. In the case of mixed pedestrian flow at signalised intersections, pedestrian traffic flow modelling is important in research of the con-ditions at signalised intersections and the evaluation of services for pedestrians. The characteristics of pedestri-an traffic flow at signalised intersections were investi-gated in this study against the background of pedestrian heterogeneity using videos of pedestrians crossing three signalised intersections in Chongqing recorded in a field survey. The pedestrian walking speeds were manually ex-tracted from the videos and used as the data basis for dis-tinguishing pedestrian heterogeneity. The walking speed data of three types (young, middle-aged, and elderly) of pedestrians at different pedestrian flows were obtained by using a microsimulation software. Based on this, a pe-destrian traffic flow model for mixed-type pedestrians at signalised intersections was established and verified by actual cases. In comparison with the HCM model, the model outperforms the HCM model overall in practical applications, indicating its strong applicability and reli-ability.

Pedestrian flow characteristics through different angled bends: Exploring the spatial variation of velocity.

Common geometrical layouts could potentially be bottlenecks, particularly during emergency and high density situations. When pedestrians are interacting with such complex geometrical settings, the congestion effect might not be uniform over the bottleneck area. This study uses the trajectory data collected through a controlled laboratory experiment to explore the spatial variation of speeds when a group of people navigates through bends. Four turning angles, i.e., 45°, 90°, 135° and 180°, with a straight corridor and two speed levels, i.e., normal speed walking and slow running (jogging), were considered in these experiments. Results explained that the speeds are significantly different over the space within the bend for all angles (except 0°) under both speed levels. In particular, average walking speeds are significantly lower near the inner corner of the bend as compared to the outer corner. Further, such speed variations are magnified when the angle of the bend and desired speed increase. These outcomes indicate that even smaller turning angles, e.g., 45° could create bottlenecks near the inner corner of the bend, particularly when the walking speeds are high. The findings of this study could be useful in understanding the congestion and bottleneck effects associated with complex geometrical settings, and calibrating microscopic simulation tools to accurately reproduce such effects.

Movement Properties of Elderly Pedestrians in the Bottleneck Flow With Different Compositions

With the development of aging society, the proportion of the old population is ascending continually. The elders facing the challenge of impaired mobility and decreasing flexibility will affect the dynamic characteristics of pedestrian flow. While the study of the evacuation dynamic mainly focuses on the young for the limited experimental conditions. The movement of elderly pedestrians are seldom investigated. However, the comprehensive understanding of the influence of the elders on the pedestrian flow is essential for facility design and evacuation management. Therefore, a series of comparative experiments between the separate elderly group, separate young group and the mixed group (38 elders and 63 young) are carried out to study the movement properties of elderly pedestrians in the bottleneck flow with different compositions quantitatively. The mixture of the elderly and the young makes the efficiency decrease significantly. In the mixed group, the speed of the young pedestrians is lower than that of the elders for the young slow down to avoid collisions. The young kept a certain distance from the elders for the sake of safety, so that the high-density profiles of the mixed group present as long strips. In addition, pedestrians in the mixed group have longer time lapse than that in the separate groups when passing the bottleneck. In the separate groups, the spatial distribution of the nearest neighbour presents as a uniform circle. The spatial distance between the elderly (0.46 m) is bigger than that between the young (0.39 m). While there is no obvious difference in the mixed group. The results can be used in pedestrian modelling, facilities designing and evacuation management for the population with old people.

Modeling vehicular and pedestrian delays at signalized midblock crosswalk under mixed traffic conditions

ABSTRACT The present study aims to develop vehicular and pedestrians delay models for signalized midblock crosswalks under mixed traffic conditions. In this study, the primary data on pedestrian and vehicle flow characteristics were recorded using video-graphic technique. The mixed traffic characteristics and other field conditions were simulated in the Vissim micro-simulation tool. The traffic flow characteristics were calibrated and validated using GEH statistics, which came out to be 2.5. For modeling the pedestrian and vehicle delays, several scenarios were simulated by varying the traffic flow and traffic signal characteristics. For each scenario, the simulated delay values were recorded. Considering the data set simulated, the delay models were developed using multiple linear regression technique with 10-fold cross validation. These models were then validated which yielded an error (MAPE) of 17% and 13% in estimating pedestrian and vehicle delays respectively. These models can be used as a tool designing better pedestrian facilities at signalized midblock crosswalks.

Effect of On-Street parking on pedestrian flow characteristics and level of service - an Indian viewpoint

Urbanization and automobile-oriented development have resulted in a significant increase in vehicular trips towards central business district (CBD) areas, consequently increasing the demand for on-street parking. In many Indian cities, on-street parking demand is regulated by an odd–even date on-street parking scheme. Under this scheme, sidewalks are subjected to fully and partially confined boundaries, affecting pedestrian movement and the level of service (LOS). Therefore, it becomes imperative to study the influence of on-street parking on pedestrian characteristics to design efficient pedestrian facilities. Pedestrian flow data were collected at three study sites in the CBD areas of three major metropolitan cities of Gujarat, India, using a videography technique. Investigation revealed an 18% reduction in walking speed for parking sidewalk face (PSF) compared to non-parking sidewalk face (NPSF), attributed to the variation in density and presence of parked vehicles. The influence of parked vehicles probed for a similar set of pedestrian densities revealed a 14% reduction in walking speed for PSF compared to NPSF. For the same geometric attributes of the sidewalk, PSF had a deteriorated pedestrian LOS at a given average condition, promulgating the need to develop separate LOS thresholds for PSF and NPSF. Based on the developed speed-density relationships for PSF and NPSF, the Monte-Carlo simulation was performed to facilitate the development of LOS thresholds. Based on the developed LOS thresholds and cumulative percentile plots, the study recommends LOS B as the design service level for sidewalks in the CBD area characterized by on-street parking.

Simulation method of urban evacuation based on mesoscopic cellular automata

In the traditional cellular automata evacuation model, the space is divided into fine grids at a micro level, which is mainly used in a two-dimensional plane case. The evacuation space is mostly a small-scale architectural space or local area. Therefore, it is difficult to simulate a wide range of evacuation scenario, and there are less researches of the cellular automata model for a wide range of evacuation. Therefore, this article combines the movement characteristics and status of the pedestrian flow to establish a mesoscopic cellular automata model of evacuation applied to larger evacuation scenarios. This model uses road cell division instead of planar grid cell division, which augments the area of a single cell physically, increases the number of people occupied by a single cell, and expresses the number of people in each cell in the form of state variables. By changing personnel density and personnel speed, and by introducing “source loading” cell loading to simulate the evacuation of people in the scene, the behavior of pedestrians evacuating from the building to the road in the actual evacuation process can be simulated. The state transition equation simulates the movement of people in the evacuation process. When the number of people in the cell is larger, the density of people in the cell is higher, and their walking speed also decreases, which reflects the distribution and movement characteristics of pedestrian flow. This paper uses this model to divide the evacuation area of the college campus, and divides the entire campus into four evacuation areas. The evacuees in each area are evacuated corresponding to the corresponding exit, by planning the evacuation path, pedestrians walking from the “source loading” cell to the exit for evacuation. Through simulation, it is possible to analyze the macro-evacuation situation in the scene and observe the status change of a single cell. There are observed a high density of people in local road sections during campus evacuation, and the problem about the distribution of people on campus problems such as unevenness of pedestrian distribution and long evacuation schedules in certain places. Through the simulation of this model, possible problems in the actual evacuation process are found, and the improvement guidance and opinions are presented correspondingly.

Effect of turning curvature on the single-file dynamics of pedestrian flow: An experimental study

Previous studies have shown considerable discrepancies in the characteristics of pedestrian flow obtained in different experiments. So far, the origin of these discrepancies is not well understood. Here we test a possible mechanism by studying the possible influence of geometry on pedestrian traffic by controlled experiments in different set-ups. By combining instantaneous and improved local measurements we find strong indications for an influence of curvature on the flow properties comparing local flows and densities for an oval set-up, which includes a straight part, and a circular set-up. In the jamming phase, the most efficient flow appears in the straight passage (curvature K=0) where the flow is about 20% higher than in the curved parts. We relate this reduction of flow in the curved part to the spatial distribution of pedestrians. Results for the headway distribution indicate that the curvature induces a more homogeneous distribution of pedestrians than the one observed for the straight part. The distribution on the straight part is more heterogeneous which seems to allow a more efficient use of the available space leading to larger flows.

Pedestrian flow characteristics through bends: Effects of angle and desired speed

This study quantitatively described how the desired speed, which may reflect the emergency level, and the angle of bend affect the pedestrian flow by comparing fundamental diagrams derived from trajectory data collected through laboratory experiments. Results showed that the slow running (≈ 2.8 m/s speed) can increase the maximum flow through a bend by around 60 % compared to normal walking (≈ 1.4 m/s speed) regardless of the turning angle. Further, it was found that the turning angle of the bend has a stronger negative impact on the moving speed of crowds under running conditions. Compared to the turning angle, congestion level seemed to have a minor impact on the average moving speed through the bends. On the other hand, for 90° and 180° bends, the variations of the speed were observed to decrease with the increase of density which indicated that although congestion level deteriorated the flow conditions at bends, it homogenized the collective moving speed of pedestrians.