Flows of walking  and running  pedestrians in a  corridor through  exits of  different widths

Author: Huang  Chuanli, Wang Lu,  Yu Hang,  Li  Hongliu,  Zhang Jun,  Song  Weiguo,  Lo  Siuming,  Rafaqat  Warda

DOI:  10.1016/j.ssci.2020.105040

Keywords: crowd, dynamics, evacuation, behavior, faster, slower, speed 

Abstract: 

Human safety in crowded environments has been recognized as an important and rapidly growing research area due to its significant implications for public safety. In this study, a series of experiments were performed in a 10 m long corridor to investigate the walking and running pedestrian flows. A piecewise linear decreasing trend is found between the pedestrian density and the corresponding speed difference with the critical density of 1.65 m(-2)). In the relatively free phase (density < 1.65 m(-2)), the speed difference decreases significantly with the slope of 0.77. Whereas, the difference remains small with a slope of 0.15 in the constrained phase (density > 1.65 m(-2)). In the corridor (excluding the 2 m area around the exit), running pedestrians show longer distance headways than the walking ones under relatively low-density situation. Meanwhile, the running flow is more continuous with a lower probability of clogging at the exit in the free phase. In reality, pedestrian density should be an important factor for a decision maker when deciding to take the walking or running evacuation strategy. The data also can be used as validation benchmarks for models that intend to simulate pedestrians evacuating through a corridor in the running way.