Obstacle Optimization for Panic Flow - Reducing the Tangential Momentum Increases the Escape Speed

Jiang, Li; Li, Jingyu; Shen, Chao; Yang, Sicong; Han, Zhangang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115463

Cited by 86 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Notably, it has been experimentally proved for granular matter discharged from a silo [29,30], and the passage of different animals (such as sheep [13,31] and mice [32]) through narrow doors. Nevertheless, apart from some inconclusive results [3,[33][34][35], an experimental confirmation of this feature in real pedestrian tests is still lacking.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Redefining the role of obstacles in pedestrian evacuation

Garcimartín

Maza

Pastor³

et al. 2018

New J. Phys.

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The placement of obstacles in front of doors is believed to be an effective strategy to increase the flow of pedestrians, hence improving the evacuation process. Since it was first suggested, this counterintuitive feature is considered a hallmark of pedestrian flows through bottlenecks. Indeed, despite the little experimental evidence, the placement of an obstacle has been hailed as the panacea for solving evacuation problems. In this work, we challenge this idea and experimentally demonstrate that the pedestrians flow rate is not necessarily altered by the presence of an obstacle. This result-which is at odds with recent demonstrations on its suitability for the cases of granular media, sheep and micediffers from the outcomes of most of existing numerical models, and warns about the risks of carelessly extrapolating animal behaviour to humans. Our experimental findings also reveal an unnoticed phenomenon in relation with the crowd movement in front of the exit: in competitive evacuations, an obstacle attenuates the development of collective transversal rushes, which are hazardous as they might cause falls.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Redefining the role of obstacles in pedestrian evacuation

Garcimartín

Maza

Pastor³

et al. 2018

New J. Phys.

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“…Frank et al (2011) studied the influence of diverse distance between panel-like obstacle and exit, and showed that an obstacle could not guarantee better chance of survival. Jiang et al (2014) carried out an experiment to validate simulated optimal obstacle layout, demonstrating that two pillars on both sides of the exit minimized the escape time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constant evacuation time gap: Experimental study and modeling

Guo¹,

Jiang²,

Hu³

et al. 2017

Chinese Phys. B

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In this paper, the impact of escaping in couples on the evacuation dynamics has been investigated via experiments and modeling. Two sets of experiments have been implemented, in which pedestrians are asked to escape either in individual or in couples. The experiments show that escaping in couples can decrease the average evacuation time. Moreover, it is found that the average evacuation time gap is essentially constant, which means that the evacuation speed essentially does not depend on the number of pedestrians that have not yet escaped. To model the evacuation dynamics, an improved social force model has been proposed, in which it is assumed that the driving force of a pedestrian cannot be fulfilled when the composition of physical forces exceeds a threshold because the pedestrian cannot keep his/her body balance under this circumstance. To model the effect of escaping in couples, attraction force has been introduced between the partners.Simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental ones.

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“…Most related to our work is the optimization of crowd‐affecting environment parameters. Optimization of features, such as pillars, has been studied by Rodriquez et al and Jiang et al for a single steering algorithm. Recent literature shows that the choice of steering algorithm affects the output of environment optimizations …”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

On density–flow relationships during crowd evacuation

Haworth

Usman

Berseth

et al. 2017

Computer Animation & Virtual

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Traffic and pedestrian dynamics communities often use a standard qualitative classification, namely, level of service (LoS), to describe the relationship between the crowd flow and crowd density in an environment. However, this classification has not yet been rigorously studied in the application of synthetic crowds, which are derived using a variety of approaches and may model certain behaviors better than others. Although synthetic crowds can be simulated to extrapolate crowd flow for rigorous quantitative analysis, these may be at odds with the qualitative LoS. In order to successfully use computer-assisted design, it is important to have sound quantitative metrics as the basis for analysis and optimization. In this paper, we present a systematic empirical analysis of LoS for synthetic crowds. Using established crowd simulation techniques, we quantify the relation between crowd density and crowd flow for evacuation scenarios across different simulators to explore conformity to qualitative LoS classifications. Following this study, we perform environment optimization experiments under various LoS conditions. Finally, we test the generality of optimizing under these LoS conditions. Our results motivate the need for further study, using real and synthetic crowd datasets across representative environment benchmarks.

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Obstacle Optimization for Panic Flow - Reducing the Tangential Momentum Increases the Escape Speed

Cited by 86 publications

References 28 publications

Redefining the role of obstacles in pedestrian evacuation

Redefining the role of obstacles in pedestrian evacuation

Constant evacuation time gap: Experimental study and modeling

On density–flow relationships during crowd evacuation

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