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

Geoerg, Paul; Schumann, Jette; Boltes, Maik; Kinateder, Max

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-18142-7

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…It was most efficient to pass through the bottleneck without a wheelchair or luggage, and carrying luggage was less disruptive than using a wheelchair in such scenarios. Overall, our findings support previous work (e.g., [26]), suggesting that increased heterogeneity changes crowd dynamics. This adds to the growing evidence challenging the status quo of existing approaches to estimate capacities and key performance values of crowd movement.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

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Together Apart: the Influence of Increased Crowd Heterogeneity on Crowd Dynamics at Bottlenecks

Geoerg,

Boomers,

Berthiaume

et al. 2024

Coll Dyn

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Individual differences in mobility (e.g., due to wheelchair use) are often ignored in the prediction of crowd movement. Consequently, engineering tools cannot fully describe the impact of vulnerable populations on egress performance. To contribute to closing this gap, we performed laboratory experiments with 25 pedestrians with varying mobility profiles. The control condition comprised only participants without any additional equipment; in the luggage condition and the wheelchair condition, two participants at the center of the group either carried suitcases or used a wheelchair. We found that individuals using wheelchairs and to a lesser degree those carrying luggage needed longer to pass through the bottleneck, which also affected those walking behind them. This led to slower times to fully clear the bottleneck in the wheelchair and luggage condition compared to the control group. The results challenge the status quo in existing approaches to calculating egress performance and other key performance metrics in crowd dynamics.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…An important question is what the underlying mechanisms of the differences between heterogeneous and homogeneous crowds are. Previous work has found anecdotal evidence that pedestrians keep a larger distance from wheelchair users [26]. This change in behavior may have cascading effects on microscopic and macroscopic movement parameters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Together Apart: the Influence of Increased Crowd Heterogeneity on Crowd Dynamics at Bottlenecks

Geoerg,

Boomers,

Berthiaume

et al. 2024

Coll Dyn

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Overall, our findings support previous work (e.g., [26], suggesting that increased heterogeneity changes crowd dynamics. This adds to the growing evidence challenging the status quo of existing approaches to estimate capacities and key performance values of crowd movement.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Together Apart: Increased Crowd Heterogeneity Influences Crowd Dynamics and Interpersonal Distance at Bottlenecks

Geoerg

Schumann

Boltes

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Despite considerable research efforts, most controlled empirical studies on crowd movement usually rely on homogeneous crowds, i.e., research participants are typically young adults without disabilities. Consequently, little is known about pedestrian movement in more diverse and heterogeneous crowd conditions, e.g., when persons with reduced mobility are present. This gap may be particularly relevant at bottlenecks, along the path of a moving crowd that limit the capacity of pedestrian flow. Here, we present results from 12 studies in which participants (total N = 252) with and without visible disabilities moved together in a crowd. In each study, groups of participants walked together in a hallway with a bottleneck at the end. The point of speed adoption, distances between neighbours, and behavioural activities were analysed. We found (1) that participants with disabilities reduced their speed further away from the bottleneck than participants without disabilities; (2) participants without disabilities stayed closer to neighbors with disabilities than to neighbors without disabilities; and (3) participants interacted and communicated with each other to organise in front of the bottleneck. These results underline the importance of studying representative and heterogeneous samples in crowd dynamics. We also argue that more interdisciplinary research is needed to better understand the dynamics of interactions between neighbors in a crowd. A more nuanced understanding of pedestrian dynamics holds the promise of improving the validity of simulation tools such as movement and evacuation models.

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“…In [6], a series of experiments was presented in which 252 participants with and without visible defects, moving in a crowd, took part. Each experiment involved groups of participants moving down a corridor with a narrowing path at the end.…”

Section: Literature Review and Problem Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvement of the methodology for determining the movement parameters of individuals with visual impairments during evacuation from higher education institutions with inclusive education using a simplified analytical model

Dotsenko,

Khlevnoi,

Kovalyshyn

et al. 2024

EEJET

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The object of the study is the movement parameters of mixed evacuation flows, which include participants with visual impairments. Such parameters are the speed of movement, density and the percentage of participants with visual impairments in the flow. Solving the problems of calculating the duration of evacuation of the population from educational institutions with inclusive education is very relevant, since this process has a significant feature that is not typical for evacuation from most residential and public buildings. In such educational institutions, all students move in groups under the control of scientific and pedagogical workers. This feature is not taken into account in the regulatory documents that fix the methods of calculating the duration of evacuation. The numerical parameters obtained by authors allow to solve this problem. According to the results of the experiment, 241 measurements of the speed and density of the flow were made on horizontal sections, 204 – during the descent of the stairs and 206 – during the ascent. The dependences between these parameters were established by conducting regression analysis. As part of the experiment, flows were monitored with a variable value of the percentage of people with visual impairments in the flow. Thanks to this, the impact of the increase the number of people with visual impairments in the flow on the speed of movement on various sections of the evacuation routes was established. The analysis of the obtained results shows that the appearance of the first participant with visual impairments in the flow leads to a decrease in the speed of movement. In the future, the relationship between a decrease in speed and an increase in the percentage of traffic participants with visual impairments is linear. The obtained dependencies can be used as input parameters for calculations of the duration of evacuation in educational institutions with inclusive education according to a simplified analytical model and allow obtaining smaller deviations from the results obtained in real conditions (3.4–25 %) compared to the current individual model (35, 5–52.3 %)

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

Cited by 14 publications

References 53 publications

Together Apart: the Influence of Increased Crowd Heterogeneity on Crowd Dynamics at Bottlenecks

Together Apart: the Influence of Increased Crowd Heterogeneity on Crowd Dynamics at Bottlenecks

Together Apart: Increased Crowd Heterogeneity Influences Crowd Dynamics and Interpersonal Distance at Bottlenecks

Improvement of the methodology for determining the movement parameters of individuals with visual impairments during evacuation from higher education institutions with inclusive education using a simplified analytical model

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