1,384 research outputs found
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
Properties of pedestrians walking in line: Stepping behavior
In human crowds, interactions among individuals give rise to a variety of
self-organized collective motions that help the group to effectively solve the
problem of coordination. However, it is still not known exactly how humans
adjust their behavior locally, nor what are the direct consequences on the
emergent organization. One of the underlying mechanisms of adjusting individual
motions is the stepping dynamics. In this paper, we present first quantitative
analysis on the stepping behavior in a one-dimensional pedestrian flow studied
under controlled laboratory conditions. We find that the step length is
proportional to the velocity of the pedestrian, and is directly related to the
space available in front of him, while the variations of the step duration are
much smaller. This is in contrast with locomotion studies performed on isolated
pedestrians and shows that the local density has a direct influence on the
stepping characteristics. Furthermore, we study the phenomena of
synchronization -walking in lockstep- and show its dependence on flow
densities. We show that the synchronization of steps is particularly important
at high densities, which has direct impact on the studies of optimizing
pedestrians flow in congested situations. However, small synchronization and
antisynchronization effects are found also at very low densities, for which no
steric constraints exist between successive pedestrians, showing the natural
tendency to synchronize according to perceived visual signals.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
New insights into pedestrian flow through bottlenecks
Capacity estimation is an important tool for the design and dimensioning of
pedestrian facilities. The literature contains different procedures and
specifications which show considerable differences with respect to the
estimated flow values. Moreover do new experimental data indicate a stepwise
growing of the capacity with the width and thus challenge the validity of the
specific flow concept. To resolve these differences we have studied
experimentally the unidirectional pedestrian flow through bottlenecks under
laboratory conditions. The time development of quantities like individual
velocities, density and individual time gaps in bottlenecks of different width
is presented. The data show a linear growth of the flow with the width. The
comparison of the results with experimental data of other authors indicates
that the basic assumption of the capacity estimation for bottlenecks has to be
revised. In contradiction with most planning guidelines our main result is,
that a jam occurs even if the incoming flow does not overstep the capacity
defined by the maximum of the flow according to the fundamental diagram.Comment: Traffic flow, pedestrian traffic, crowd dynamics, capacity of
bottlenecks (16 pages, 8 figures); (+ 3 new figures and minor revisions
A Modification of the Social Force Model by Foresight
The motion of pedestrian crowds (e.g. for simulation of an evacuation
situation) can be modeled as a multi-body system of self driven particles with
repulsive interaction. We use a few simple situations to determine the simplest
allowed functional form of the force function. More complexity may be necessary
to model more complex situations. There are many unknown parameters to such
models, which have to be adjusted correctly. The parameters can be related to
quantities that can be measured independently, like step length and frequency.
The microscopic behavior is, however, only poorly reproduced in many
situations, a person approaching a standing or slow obstacle will e.g. show
oscillations in position, and the trajectories of two persons meeting in a
corridor in opposite direction will be far from realistic and somewhat erratic.
This is inpart due to the assumption of instantaneous reaction on the momentary
situation. Obviously, persons react with a small time lag, while on the other
hand they will anticipate changing situations for at least a short time. Thus
basing the repulsive interaction on a (linear) extrapolation over a short time
(e.g. 1 s) eliminates the oscillations at slowing down and smoothes the
patterns of giving way to others to a more realistic behavior. A second problem
is the additive combination of binary interactions. It is shown that combining
only a few relevant interactions gives better model performance.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, Preprint from PED 2008 (Wuppertal
Properties of pedestrians walking in line - Fundamental diagrams
We present experimental results obtained for a one-dimensional flow using
high precision motion capture. The full pedestrians' trajectories are obtained.
In this paper, we focus on the fundamental diagram, and on the relation between
the instantaneous velocity and spatial headway (distance to the predecessor).
While the latter was found to be linear in previous experiments, we show that
it is rather a piecewise linear behavior which is found if larger density
ranges are covered. Indeed, our data clearly exhibits three distinct regimes in
the behavior of pedestrians that follow each other. The transitions between
these regimes occur at spatial headways of about 1.1 and 3 m, respectively.
This finding could be useful for future modeling.Comment: 9 figures, 3 table
When is a bottleneck a bottleneck?
Bottlenecks, i.e. local reductions of capacity, are one of the most relevant
scenarios of traffic systems. The asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP)
with a defect is a minimal model for such a bottleneck scenario. One crucial
question is "What is the critical strength of the defect that is required to
create global effects, i.e. traffic jams localized at the defect position".
Intuitively one would expect that already an arbitrarily small bottleneck
strength leads to global effects in the system, e.g. a reduction of the maximal
current. Therefore it came as a surprise when, based on computer simulations,
it was claimed that the reaction of the system depends in non-continuous way on
the defect strength and weak defects do not have a global influence on the
system. Here we reconcile intuition and simulations by showing that indeed the
critical defect strength is zero. We discuss the implications for the analysis
of empirical and numerical data.Comment: 8 pages, to appear in the proceedings of Traffic and Granular Flow
'1
Generalized Centrifugal Force Model for Pedestrian Dynamics
A spatially continuous force-based model for simulating pedestrian dynamics
is introduced which includes an elliptical volume exclusion of pedestrians. We
discuss the phenomena of oscillations and overlapping which occur for certain
choices of the forces. The main intention of this work is the quantitative
description of pedestrian movement in several geometries. Measurements of the
fundamental diagram in narrow and wide corridors are performed. The results of
the proposed model show good agreement with empirical data obtained in
controlled experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication as a Regular Article
in Physical Review E. This version contains minor change
- …