Effect of Intersecting Angle on Pedestrian Crowd Flow under Normal and Evacuation Conditions

Abstract

Complex pedestrian or passenger crowd movements, such as intersecting movements, can create a bottleneck resulting in delays during emergency escape from public infrastructure such as major public transport hubs. Limited studies have examined the effect of different intersecting angles and walking speeds on pedestrian outflow. This study aims to systematically investigate the effect of different intersecting angles (30 • , 90 • , and 150 • ) and walking speeds (normal walking, faster walking) on pedestrian outflow at an intersecting path or junction through controlled laboratory experiments. Further, we consider both blocked vision and un-blocked vision in our experiments. The results from our experiments show that the acute angle of 30 • has a higher flow rate and less evacuation time as compared to the other angles. The obtuse intersecting angle of 150 • was the most undesirable intersecting angle in terms of outflow, evacuation time, and delays at the junction. Faster walking generally led to reduced evacuation time as compared to normal walking. It is also interesting to note that the results from both blocked vision and un-blocked vision were not statistically significant, suggesting that line of sight was not an important factor in regulating the flow at the junction. The results from our findings are a valuable resource to verify the mathematical model intended to simulate pedestrian or passenger crowd movements and behavior within major public infrastructure under both normal and evacuation conditions.

Analysis of emergent patterns in crossing flows of pedestrians reveals an invariant of ‘stripe’ formation in human data

“…A striped pattern facilitates overall pedestrian flow by reducing collision-avoidance maneuvers, thereby increasing the average walking speed. Only a few subsequent human studies have tested oblique crossing angles [ 69 – 71 ], but stripe patterns were not analyzed. The bisector hypothesis thus remains to be tested experimentally.…”

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

“…On the contrary, Zhang and Seyfried [ 45 ] indicated that there is no significant difference between the fundamental diagrams of 90° and 180° intersecting angles. Aghabayk et al [ 24 ] considered three crossing angles (30°, 90, and 150°) and two speed levels (normal speed walking and jogging) and concluded that crossing configurations with smaller angles (30° in their experiment) have higher flow rates and smaller evacuation times. Lian et al [ 25 ] conducted an experiment to study four-directional intersecting flows with 364 students.…”

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

“…Aghabayk et al [28] investigated the impact of intersection angles and desired speed on the outflow rate and evacuation time of crossing configurations using the data collected through a controlled experiment. The paper considered three intersection angles, i.e., 30 • , 90 • , and 150 • , and two desired speed levels, i.e., normal-speed walking and jogging.…”

“…However, the speed was limited to slow-speed running to ensure the safety of the participants during the experiment. The present study is based on the controlled laboratory experimental data using human subjects collected in 2016 by Aghabayk et al [28], which examines the influence of intersecting angles on pedestrian crowd flow using the aggregate values of the flow rate, speed, evacuation time, and travel time. The present paper provides further in-depth and microscopic analysis of the data to understand the spatial variations in speed within the corridor for intersecting pedestrian streams at varying speed levels.…”