Experimental Study of Phase Transition in Pedestrian Flow

The transition between low and high density phases is a typical feature of systems with social interactions. This contribution focuses on simple evacuation design of one room with one entrance and one exit; four passing-through experiments were organized and evaluated by means of automatic image processing. The phase of the system, determined by travel time and occupancy, is evaluated with respect to the inflow, a controlled boundary condition. Critical values of inflow and outflow were described with respect to the transition from low density to congested state. Moreover, microscopic analysis of travel time is provided.Comment: To appear in proceedings of Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics 2014, Transportation Research Procedia, Elsevie

Experimental Analysis of Two-Dimensional Pedestrian Flow in front of the Bottleneck

This contribution presents experimental study of two-dimensional pedestrian flow with the aim to capture the pedestrian behaviour within the cluster formed in front of the bottleneck. Two experiments of passing through a room with one entrance and one exit were arranged according to phase transition study in Ezaki et al. (2012), the inflow rate was regulated to obtain different walking modes. By means of automatic image processing, pedestrians' paths are extracted from camera records to get actual velocity and local density. Macroscopic information is extracted by means of virtual detector and leaving times of pedestrians. The pedestrian's behaviour is evaluated by means of density and velocity. Different approaches of measurement are compared using several fundamental diagrams. Two phases of crowd behaviour have been recognized and the phase transition was described.Comment: In proceedings of Traffic and Granullar Flow 2013, Springe

Effects of Boundary Conditions on Single-File Pedestrian Flow

In this paper we investigate effects of boundary conditions on one dimensional pedestrian flow which involves purely longitudinal interactions. Qualitatively, stop-and-go waves are observed under closed boundary condition and dissolve when the boundary is open. To get more detailed information the fundamental diagrams of the open and closed systems are compared using Voronoi-based measurement method. Higher maximal specific flow is observed from the pedestrian movement at open boundary condition

Individual Microscopic Results Of Bottleneck Experiments

This contribution provides microscopic experimental study of pedestrian motion in front of the bottleneck, explains the high variance of individual travel time by the statistical analysis of trajectories. The analysis shows that this heterogeneity increases with increasing occupancy. Some participants were able to reach lower travel time due more efficient path selection and more aggressive behavior within the crowd. Based on this observations, linear model predicting travel time with respect to the aggressiveness of pedestrian is proposed.Comment: Submitted to Traffic and Granullar Flow 2015, Springe

Noise-Induced Stop-and-Go Dynamics in Pedestrian Single-file Motion

Stop-and-go waves are a common feature of vehicular traffic and have also been observed in pedestrian flows. Usually the occurrence of this self-organization phenomenon is related to an inertia mechanism. It requires fine-tuning of the parameters and is described by instability and phase transitions. Here, we present a novel explanation for stop-and-go waves in pedestrian dynamics based on stochastic effects. By introducing coloured noise in a stable microscopic inertia-free (i.e. first order) model, pedestrian stop-and-go behaviour can be described realistically without requirement of instability and phase transition. We compare simulation results to empirical pedestrian trajectories and discuss plausible values for the model’s parameters

The Inflection Point of the Speed-Density Relation and the Social Force Model

It has been argued that the speed-density digram of pedestrian movement has an inflection point. This inflection point was found empirically in investigations of closed-loop single-file pedestrian movement. The reduced complexity of single-file movement does not only allow a higher precision for the evaluation of empirical data, but it occasionally also allows analytical considerations for micosimulation models. In this way it will be shown that certain (common) variants of the Social Force Model (SFM) do not produce an inflection point in the speed-density diagram if infinitely many pedestrians contribute to the force computed for one pedestrian. We propose a modified Social Force Model that produces the inflection point.Comment: accepted for presentation at conference Traffic and Granular Flow 201