Ordering in bidirectional pedestrian flows and its influence on the fundamental diagram

Experiments under laboratory conditions were carried out to study the ordering in bidirectional pedestrian streams and its influence on the fundamental diagram (density-speed-flow relation). The Voronoi method is used to resolve the fine structure of the resulting velocity-density relations and spatial dependence of the measurements. The data show that the specific flow concept is applicable also for bidirectional streams. For various forms of ordering in bidirectional streams, no large differences among density-flow relationships are found in the observed density range. The fundamental diagrams of bidirectional streams with different forms of ordering are compared with that of unidirectional streams. The result shows differences in the shape of the relation for {\rho} > 1.0 m-2. The maximum of the specific flow in unidirectional streams is significantly larger than that in all bidirectional streams examined.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, 3 Table

An Experimental Study of Pedestrian Congestions: Influence of Bottleneck Width and Length

The placement and dimensioning of exit routes is informed by experimental data and theoretical models. The experimental data is still to a large extent uncertain and contradictory. In this contribution an attempt is made to understand and reconcile these differences with our own experiments.Comment: Conference proceedings for Traffic and Granular Flow 200

Microscopic insights into pedestrian motion through a bottleneck, resolving spatial and temporal variations

The motion of pedestrians is subject to a wide range of influences and exhibits a rich phenomenology. To enable precise measurement of the density and velocity we use an alternative definition using Voronoi diagrams which exhibits smaller fluctuations than the standard definitions. This method permits examination on scales smaller than the pedestrians. We use this method to investigate the spatial and temporal variation of the observables at bottlenecks. Experiments were performed with 180 test subjects and a wide range of bottleneck parameters. The anomalous flow through short bottlenecks and non-stationary states present with narrow bottlenecks are analysed

Performance of stairs – Fundamental diagram and topographical measurements

This contribution summarizes information about the fundamental diagram of stairs. First discrepancies of fundamental diagrams of well-known planning handbooks for pedestrian facilities and evacuation routes are discussed. To proof the correspondence to experimental data, published measurements available in literature are collected and compared. In the second part we derive a fundamental diagram for stairs downwards based on precise trajectories. In addition we scrutinize the influence of the slope of stair on the fundamental diagram. To check whether our experiments performed under laboratory conditions are comparable with characteristics of motion of every day situations, we present a comparison with a field study carried out at the same external staircase. Furthermore the contribution shows a method to gain topographical information of density, velocity, and specific flow structures to get a microscopic insight into pedestrian dynamics on stairs. This information could be used to identify effective bottlenecks