Pedestrian flow characteristics through different angled bends: Exploring the spatial variation of velocity

Abstract

Common geometrical layouts could potentially be bottlenecks, particularly during emergency and high density situations. When pedestrians are interacting with such complex geometrical settings, the congestion effect might not be uniform over the bottleneck area. This study uses the trajectory data collected through a controlled laboratory experiment to explore the spatial variation of speeds when a group of people navigates through bends. Four turning angles, i.e., 45°, 90°, 135° and 180°, with a straight corridor and two speed levels, i.e., normal speed walking and slow running (jogging), were considered in these experiments. Results explained that the speeds are significantly different over the space within the bend for all angles (except 0°) under both speed levels. In particular, average walking speeds are significantly lower near the inner corner of the bend as compared to the outer corner. Further, such speed variations are magnified when the angle of the bend and desired speed increase. These outcomes indicate that even smaller turning angles, e.g., 45° could create bottlenecks near the inner corner of the bend, particularly when the walking speeds are high. The findings of this study could be useful in understanding the congestion and bottleneck effects associated with complex geometrical settings, and calibrating microscopic simulation tools to accurately reproduce such effects.

Crowd Evacuation through Crossing Configurations: Effect of Crossing Angles and Walking Speeds on Speed Variation and Evacuation Time

“…Thus, while comparing the different lanes (i.e., within the corridor), speed variation is affected mainly by the angle of the intersection rather than the speed at which the pedestrians are moving. The findings are in line with those of Hannun et al [43], who observed that the speed reduction is the lowest in the inner lanes for unidirectional flows in bends.…”

“…Moreover, it can be visualized that the congestion and resulting reduction in speed are severe in the inner corner of the intersection in all scenarios. The speed reduction for unidirectional flows is more severe in the corners, as reported by Hannun et al [43]. Thus, for both unidirectional flow through bends, as well as the bi-directional flow of pedestrians, the speed reduction is greater at the corners or bends.…”

Investigating the Dynamics of Pedestrian Flow through Different Transition Bottlenecks

“…Although crowd barriers also formed at the curve and straight bottlenecks, they had less impact on pedestrian speed, and pedestrians still maintained a certain speed to pass through the bottleneck. To support our findings, we refer to the study conducted by Jamal Hannun and Charitha Dias, which investigated pedestrian velocity characteristics through different angled bends [30]. In Jamal's experiment, four turning angles (0 • , 45 • , 90 • , and 135 • ) were investigated, and the velocity varied significantly in the bending space at all angles except for the 0 • angle.…”

“…Due to factors such as space limitation, strong purposes, and so on in subways, pedestrians passing through bottlenecks often demonstrate velocity jump and path selection diversification based on individual characteristics, which are represented as individual speed, individual transit time, trajectory, and so on. Individual speed and individual transit times are frequently used to describe individual characteristics [17,25,30,31]. The total transit time and time gap are frequently used to describe group characteristics [12,22].…”

The influence of weather and temperature on pedestrian walking characteristics on the zigzag bridge

“…So far, there are quite a few studies on angled corridors (Shi et al 2018 ). The current studies mainly explore the influences of the number of pedestrians on pedestrian movement behavioral characteristics in corridors with different angles (Rahman et al 2020 ; Chen et al 2019 ; Hannun et al 2022 ). Although scholars have conducted extensive research, the mechanisms regulating human walking are not fully understood.…”