Intrinsic group behaviour II: On the dependence of triad spatial dynamics on social and personal features; and on the effect of social interaction on small group dynamics

Abstract

In a follow-up to our work on the dependence of walking dyad dynamics on intrinsic properties of the group, we now analyse how these properties affect groups of three people (triads), taking also in consideration the effect of social interaction on the dynamical properties of the group. We show that there is a strong parallel between triads and dyads. Work-oriented groups are faster and walk at a larger distance between them than leisure-oriented ones, while the latter move in a less ordered way. Such differences are present also when colleagues are contrasted with friends and families; nevertheless the similarity between friend and colleague behaviour is greater than the one between family and colleague behaviour. Male triads walk faster than triads including females, males keep a larger distance than females, and same gender groups are more ordered than mixed ones. Groups including tall people walk faster, while those with elderly or children walk at a slower pace. Groups including children move in a less ordered fashion. Results concerning relation and gender are particularly strong, and we investigated whether they hold also when other properties are kept fixed. While this is clearly true for relation, patterns relating gender often resulted to be diminished. For instance, the velocity difference due to gender is reduced if we compare only triads in the colleague relation. The effects on group dynamics due to intrinsic properties are present regardless of social interaction, but socially interacting groups are found to walk in a more ordered way. This has an opposite effect on the space occupied by non-interacting dyads and triads, since loss of structure makes dyads larger, but causes triads to lose their characteristic V formation and walk in a line (i.e., occupying more space in the direction of movement but less space in the orthogonal one).

How people with disabilities influence crowd dynamics of pedestrian movement through bottlenecks

“…However, a more formal analysis is beyond the scope of the present paper but should be considered in future work. The interested reader is also pointed to relevant work on group behavior within the context of pedestrian dynamics (e.g., 55 – 60 ).…”

Social groups barely change the speed-density relationship in unidirectional pedestrian flow, but affect operational behaviours

“…The typical walking speed of pedestrians is very important in transport, as it directly determines the flow through facilities or the egress time in evacuations. Previous work suggests that group speed decreases with social group size [26], but others suggest that the speed of triads is larger than the speed of dyads and that the speed of individuals is higher than that of social groups, additionally depending on the walking purpose [27] or even gender [28]. The spatial structure adopted by social groups appears to arise from a trade-off between maintaining cohesion and facilitating communication against the need to avoid collisions with other pedestrians.…”

“…For example, group members walk next to each other at low densities to facilitate communication and adopt more compact patterns (V-shaped or U-shaped patterns) to avoid conflicts with other pedestrians [9,29]. In addition, group structures are affected by other factors, such as the relation between group members and the gender of the group members [27,28]. Considering the space maintained by and around social groups, some authors indicate that larger social groups require more space per person than smaller groups [21].…”

How to Raise the Check-in Efficiency at an Airport Terminal: A Route Guidance Strategy

“…Turgut et al [22] proposed a social force model to study pedestrian group behavior during evacuation and found that the groups with leaders result in less evacuation time than groups without leaders. Zanlungo et al [23], [24] pointed out that the small groups would display some robust features during walking, respectively a tendency to walk abreast for dyads, in a V-shape for triads, in a U-shape for groups of 4 and 5 members, as well as a reduced speed on average compared to individuals.…”