An Empirical Study of Pedestrian Crowd Dynamics: the Impact of Different Angle Path and Grouping Gorrini, A., Bandini, S., Sarvi, M., Dias, C. and Shiwakoti, N. Authors’ Affiliations
Introduction
Experimental Procedure
Andrea Gorrini Information Society Ph.D. Program, Dep. of Sociology and Social Research, CSAI - Complex Systems and Artificial Intelligence Research Centre, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milano (Italy) Email:
[email protected]
6m
6m
6m
gathering area
1.5 m
Abstract
6m
90°
Majid Sarvi Institute of Transport Studies, Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) Email:
[email protected]
Nirajan Shiwakoti Institute of Transport Studies, Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) Email:
[email protected]
* Hp 1: The flow rate is negatively affected by the increase in turning angle * Hp 2: In HD situations, the walking speed of group members is lower than the one of singles * Hp 3: In HD situations, the walking speed is negatively affected by the increase in turning angle
1.5 m
Stefania Bandini CSAI - Complex Systems and Artificial Intelligence Research Centre, Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication (DISCo) University of Milan-Bicocca, Milano (Italy) Email:
[email protected]
Charitha Dias Institute of Transport Studies, Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) Email:
[email protected]
Conclusions
6m
6m
Recent crowd disasters (e.g., the stampede during the Love Parade on 2010 in Duisburg-Germany) have highlighted the importance to properly plan and design the physical features of public gathering places to enhance the safety of people within the crowd during evacuations, both in normal and emergency situations.
Multi-Disciplinary Approach
Likewise, the angle paths with 60° degrees (compared to the corridor scenario with 0° degrees) has a significant negative impact on both flow rate and walking speed. These results could be of notable interest for all generic crowd models aiming at replicating crowd dynamics.
We propose to use proxemics behavior theory to model social interactions among people and groups within the crowd by means of the dynamic regulation of spatial interpersonal distances. In particular, proxemic behavior of walking groups spontaneously produces typical types of spatial arrangement (e.g., line-abreast, V-like and river-like patterns) to sustain communication and spatial cohesion among members.
Procedure: The participants were taken into a room for 120 min and were asked to walk freely through the path at normal speed. The procedure was repeated three times for each scenario from 45° degrees to 60°, 90° and 0° degrees angle paths.
Setting: The path was composed of a gathering area, a corridor (1.5 m width and 12 m length), an angle path in the middle of the corridor and a turning path to come back to the gathering area. Three video cameras were used for recording.
The results of this study could be of notable interest for all generic crowd models and for those attempting to develop strategies which could properly consider circuitous egress routes of mass gathering places in order to enhance the safety of people within the crowd both in normal and emergency situations.
References
pedestrian / minute
From the social science perspective the definition of crowd is still controversial due to the lack of standard guidance for data collection. We propose to analytically investigate pedestrian movement dynamics in situation of high density, focusing on the impact of the environment physical features (turning routes) and the social interactions among pedestrian (grouping) on normal and orderly crowd egress flows.
Experimental Design: “Degree of angle path” and “subject alone or group member” are the indipendent variables. Group members were assessed considering verbal and non-verbal communication.
Results
An analytical study is proposed to investigate pedestrian crowd dynamics from a multi-disciplinary approach (i.e. traffic engineering and social science) focusing on the impact of the environment physical features and the social interactions on pedestrian movement dynamics in high-density situations. Taking advantage of previous studies that highlighted the importance of turning movements of crowd during evacuations, we empirically investigated the impact of angled paths on orderly crowd egress flows.
We also proposed to consider the social interactions among pedestrians, taking into account the presence of groups and their proxemics behavior while walking. Results showed that in all scenarios (0°, 45°, 60° and 90° angle degrees) the average walking speed of group members was 8,9% lower compared to the singles within all scenarios studied, because of their need to stay close while walking.
Sample: 68 subjects were participated. To test the Hp 2 and Hp 3, we focused on 15 singles and 15 group members (divided in four couples, one triple and one group of four members).
In situations of high density the physical layout of the turning path with 60° degrees has a significantly negative impact on the flow rate. This is 11.9% less flow rate compared to the egress path with 45° degrees. The group proxemics behavior has a negative impact on walking speed. This is 8.9% lower than that compared to singles walking in the crowd. Furthermore, the angle path with 60° degrees resulted in a large negative impact on the walking speed of both singles and group members (7.37% and 11.37% lower respectively compared to the angle path with 45° degrees).
Level of Service: According to the HCM and the Fruin’s walkway level of service criteria, the results showed an average level of service of E in all scenarios, which is associated with an irregular flow in condition of high density, typically observed in pedestrian crowd dynamics.
Hp 1: The results showed a significant difference in flow rate between the angle paths with 45°-60° degrees (p < 0.05) and between the angle paths with 0°-60°, 0°-90° and 45°-90° degrees (p < 0.01). No significant differences were found between the 0°-45° and 60°-90° degrees scenarios (p > 0.05).
Hp 2: The results showed that group members walked slower than singles, and that this differences was always significant within each scenario (p < 0.01). Overtaking and waiting dynamics among group members were observed nearby the turning path.
Hp 3: The results showed a significant difference in walking speed of both single and group members (p < 0.01) between the angle paths with 0°-60°, 0°-90°, 45°-60° and 45°-90° degrees. No differences between the 0°-45° and 60°-90° degrees angle paths (p > 0.05).
Bandini, S., Manzoni, S., Vizzari, G. Modeling, Simulating, and Visualizing Crowd Dynamics with Computational Tools Based on Situated Cellular Agents. Pedestrian behavior: models, data collection and applications, 2009, pp. 45. Challenger,W., Clegg,W. C., Robinson, A. M. Understanding crowd behaviours: Guidance and lessons identified. Technical Report prepared for UK Cabinet Office, Emergency Planning College, University of Leeds, 2009. Courtine, G. and M. Schieppati. Human walking along a curved path. Body trajectory, segment orientation and the effect of vision. European Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 18, Issue 1, 2003, pp. 177 - 190. Dias, C., Sarvi, M., Shiwakoti, N., & Burd, M. Emergency Egress Through Angled Escape Routes: Combining Experiments with Biological Entities and Pedestrian Crowd Simulation. Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting, 2012. Federici, M.L., Gorrini, A., Manenti, L., Vizzari, G., An innovative scenario for pedestrian data collection: the observation of an admission test at the University Milano-Bicocca, 6th International Conference on Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics - PED 2012, Zurich, Switzerland, 2012. Hall, E. The hidden dimension. Doubleday New York Ed., 1966. Moussaïd, M., Perozo, N., Garnier, S., Helbing, D., & Theraulaz, G. The walking behaviour of pedestrian social groups and its impact on crowd dynamics. PLoS One, e10047.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010047, 5(4), 2010. Peacock, R. D., Kuligowski, E. D., Averill, J. D. Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics. Springer Verlag, 2011. Shiwakoti N., Sarvi, M., Rose, G., Burd, M. Animal dynamics based approach for modelling pedestrian crowd egress under panic conditions, Transportation Research Part B, Vol. 45, 2011, pp. 1433-1449. Sime, J. D. Crowd psychology and engineering. Safety Science, 21(1), 1995, pp. 1-14. Yanagisawa, D., A. Kimura, A. Tomoeda, R. Nishi, Y. Suma, K. Ohtsuka and K. Nishinari. Introduction of frictional and turning function for pedestrian outflow with an obstacle. Physical Review E, 80(3), 2009.
Andrea Gorrini Paper Number: 13-1136 Poster Session Number: 340 Posterboard Location Code: A06 TRB Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting Washigton, D.C. - January 13-17, 2013
