Team-moving effect in bi-direction pedestrian flow

We propose a cellular automation model to simulate team-moving behavior in bi-directional pedestrian flow. The moving rules for double-pedestrian teaming include the constraint that pedestrians remain on adjacent cells. Phase transition, critical density — team number, velocity–density, and flow–density relationships are key component parts of the analysis. Simulations show that team-moving produces significant corridor capacity effects, and effects highly depend on the type of teaming behavior. In daily life, pedestrians prefer traverse teaming; under this bias, as teaming pedestrians increase in number, critical density reduces; that means traverse teaming will weaken the capacity of the corridor. The effect of traverse team-moving is nonlinear, and capacity will continually reduce as the team numbers increase; however, reduction rate will decay. We call this phenomenon, “the marginal utility of team-moving.”     

Calibrating cellular automaton models for pedestrians walking through corners

Cellular Automata (CA) based pedestrian simulation models have gained remarkable popularity as they are simpler and easier to implement compared to other microscopic modeling approaches. However, incorporating traditional floor field representations in CA models to simulate pedestrian corner navigation behavior could result in unrealistic behaviors. Even though several previous studies have attempted to enhance CA models to realistically simulate pedestrian maneuvers around bends, such modifications have not been calibrated or validated against empirical data. In this study, two static floor field (SFF) representations, namely ‘discrete representation’ and ‘continuous representation’, are calibrated for CA-models to represent pedestrians' walking behavior around 90° bends. Trajectory data collected through a controlled experiment are used to calibrate these model representations. Calibration results indicate that although both floor field representations can represent pedestrians' corner navigation behavior, the ‘continuous’ representation fits the data better. Output of this study could be beneficial for enhancing the reliability of existing CA-based models by representing pedestrians' corner navigation behaviors more realistically.     

A microscopic pedestrian-simulation model and its application to intersecting flows

We develop a microscopic pedestrian-simulation model in which pedestrian positions are updated at discrete time steps. At each time step, each pedestrian probabilistically selects a direction of movement from a predetermined set according to a logit-type function that considers the dynamics of other pedestrians around, and then selects a step size that satisfies a certain distribution. We perform a number of field experiments on real intersecting pedestrian flows with four different angles. We then validate and calibrate the model using sample data on the deviation angles, step velocities, and velocity–density relations obtained from the experiments.     

A least-effort principle based model for heterogeneous pedestrian flow considering overtaking behavior

In the context of global aging, how to design traffic facilities for a population with a different age composition is of high importance. For this purpose, we propose a model based on the least effort principle to simulate heterogeneous pedestrian flow. In the model, the pedestrian is represented by a three-disc shaped agent. We add a new parameter to realize pedestrians' preference to avoid changing their direction of movement too quickly. The model is validated with numerous experimental data on unidirectional pedestrian flow. In addition, we investigate the influence of corridor width and velocity distribution of crowds on unidirectional heterogeneous pedestrian flow. The simulation results reflect that widening corridors could increase the specific flow for the crowd composed of two kinds of pedestrians with significantly different free velocities. Moreover, compared with a unified crowd, the crowd composed of pedestrians with great mobility differences requires a wider corridor to attain the same traffic efficiency. This study could be beneficial in providing a better understanding of heterogeneous pedestrian flow, and quantified outcomes could be applied in traffic facility design.     

基于元胞自动机的对向行人交通流仿真研究

基于元胞自动机对对向行人交通流进行仿真研究. 模型利用四个动态参数反映行人移动区域和其视野范围内的实际情况,从而决定行人的行为选择,行人可以根据自身周围的情况选择前进、后退、等待、左右移动、交换位置等行为. 仿真研究不同方向比例与不同系统规模的对向行人流的速度-密度、流量-密度关系. 研究结果表明,系统存在相位转换和临界密度,方向比例和系统规模对行人流的速度-密度、流量-密度关系曲线的形状和系统临界密度值有一定的影响. 关键词： 元胞自动机 对向行人流 动态参数 临界密度     

Modeling walking behavior of pedestrian groups with floor field cellular automaton approach

Walking in groups is very common in a realistic walking environment. An extended floor field cellular automaton(CA)model is therefore proposed to describe the walking behavior of pedestrian groups. This model represents the motion of pedestrian groups in a realistic way. The simulation results reveal that the walking behavior of groups has an important but negative influence on pedestrian flow dynamics, especially when the density is at a high level. The presence of pedestrian groups retards the emergence of lane formation and increases the instability of operation of pedestrian flow. Moreover,the average velocity and volume of pedestrian flow are significantly reduced due to the group motion. Meanwhile, the parameter-sensitive analysis suggests that pedestrian groups should make a compromise between efficient movement and staying coherent with a certain spatial structure when walking in a dense crowd.     

Simulation of pedestrian flow on square lattice based on cellular automata model

Simulations of two-way and four-way pedestrian flow on the square lattice for small systems will be presented based on cellular automata (CA) in this paper. For the reason that the decision-making process of pedestrians in their movements is complex and intelligent, pedestrian movement is more flexible and adaptive to dynamic conditions than vehicular flow. First, a special technique will be introduced to simplify tactically the process into the interaction of four dynamic parameters, which can reflect the pedestrian judgment on the surrounding conditions and decide the pedestrian's choice of action such as moving ahead, stopping to wait, position exchange, lane switching, back stepping, etc. Second, the simulation method and the relationships of velocity-density and flow-density will be studied and analyzed. It is found that there are phase transitions at the critical density point and at different phases the relationships of velocity-density and flow-density are different from each other. Moreover, the different weight coefficients of four dynamic parameters affect the simulation results of these two models.     

Simulation of pedestrian evacuation with asymmetrical exits layout

A simulation of pedestrian evacuation from a room with asymmetrical exit layout is presented based on the improved Dynamic Parameter Model in this paper. A special technique is introduced to compute two basic dynamic parameters: Direction-parameter and Empty-parameter considering the effects of pedestrian jam around exits and the width of exits on evacuation path selection in order to reduce evacuation imbalance caused by the asymmetry of exits layout. Two new coefficients: cognition coefficient and imbalance coefficient are introduced to respectively describe pedestrian cognitive ability and the layout imbalance of exits. The simulation results of the improved and original models are compared and analyzed. Simulation results show that evacuation time depends on the cognition coefficient and imbalance coefficient under normal evacuation condition with reasonable pedestrian. It is also found that there are phase transitions and critical points in the simulation curves of evacuation time against cognition coefficient and that the pedestrian flow shows distinctive characteristics at different phases. The values of critical cognition coefficient points depend on the initial pedestrian density and imbalance coefficient.     

A higher-order macroscopic model for pedestrian flows

This paper develops a higher-order macroscopic model of pedestrian crowd dynamics derived from fluid dynamics that consists of two-dimensional Euler equations with relaxation. The desired directional motion of pedestrians is determined by an Eikonal-type equation, which describes a problem that minimizes the instantaneous total walking cost from origin to destination. A linear stability analysis of the model demonstrates its ability to describe traffic instability in crowd flows. The algorithm to solve the macroscopic model is composed of a splitting technique introduced to treat the relaxation terms, a second-order positivity-preserving central-upwind scheme for hyperbolic conservation laws, and a fast-sweeping method for the Eikonal-type equation on unstructured meshes. To test the applicability of the model, we study a challenging pedestrian crowd flow problem of the presence of an obstruction in a two-dimensional continuous walking facility. The numerical results indicate the rationality of the model and the effectiveness of the computational algorithm in predicting the flux or density distribution and the macroscopic behavior of the pedestrian crowd flow. The simulation results are compared with those obtained by the two-dimensional Lighthill-Whitham-Richards pedestrian flow model with various model parameters, which further shows that the macroscopic model is able to correctly describe complex phenomena such as “stop-and-go waves” observed in empirical pedestrian flows.     

Simulation model of pedestrian interactive behavior

This paper presents a simulation model for pedestrian collective behavior. It is supposed that the pedestrians make individual decisions during movement according to their wishes and interaction with other pedestrians. The follow effect, deterrent effect and rejection effect are put forth as latent interactive effects influencing pedestrian decisions. Three categories of potential fields were defined to model the pedestrian behavior by simulating pedestrians’ decision processes. A circumstance potential field was defined to simulate the desire to targets. Moving and waiting potential fields were defined to model the interaction. Experiments were run for the model validation and coefficient performance verification. Performances and relationships of sensitivity coefficient, decay coefficient and diffusion coefficient are studied to clarify the effectiveness and flexibility of the presented model in generating pedestrian movement under a variety of situations. The simulation results show the good performance of the model in reflecting pedestrian interactive behavior.     

Self-organized phenomena of pedestrian counter flow in a channel under periodic boundary conditions

In this paper we investigate self-organized phenomena such as lane formation generated by pedestrian counter flow in a channel.The lattice gas model is extended to take the effect of walkers in the opposite direction into account simultaneously when they are in the view field of a walker,i.e.,walkers tend to follow the leaders in the same direction and avoid conflicts with those walking towards them.The improved model is then used to mimic pedestrian counter flow in a channel under periodic boundary conditions.Numerical simulations show that lane formation is well reproduced,and this process is rather rapid which coincides with real pedestrian traffic.The average velocity and critical density are found to increase to some degree with the consideration of view field.     

步行通道内行人流拉链现象的生成机理与仿真研究

以步行通道内的单向行人流为研究对象,分析研究行人拉链现象的生成机理,并建立基于Voronoi图的速度修正模型对其仿真研究.首先,从行人追求视野最佳和步行舒适的角度分析拉链现象的生成机理,以行人的视野关注和视野遮挡描述影响行人移动过程中产生拉链偏移的因素;以行人局部密度描述行人的步行舒适度;引入拉链敏感系数描述行人客观偏移的意愿程度;提出单个行人侧向偏移的机制,获得行人最佳的偏移位置.然后,构建基于Voronoi图的行人速度修正仿真模型,考虑行人是否有偏移倾向的主观意愿,并嵌入偏移规则,模拟再现行人的拉链现象.仿真发现:行人的拉链层数与通道宽度成正比,该模型速度密度关系图与实证数据吻合较好;与不考虑拉链效应相比,倾向主动进行侧向偏移的行人占比越大,越有助于提高通道内行人的移动速度、舒适度和空间利用率.     

基于元胞传输模型的楼梯区域行人运动

针对楼梯区域行人运动进行观测实验,获得行人上下楼过程中的运动数据,通过对数据进行整理与分析,绘制不同过程中流量-密度变化关系图.通过对流密关系图进行定量分析,掌握楼梯区域行人运动特征,并改进原有元胞传输模型,提出楼梯行人运动模型,仿真模拟行人运动过程.模型中,引入势能修正系数,利用异向行人对元胞势能的影响来改变行人的路径选择;引入流量修正系数,描述不同的物理参数对元胞边界最大流量的影响;引入偏移系数,修正移动规则,增强优先方向对行人路径选择行为的影响.然后,通过比较仿真结果与实验数据,对模型及引入参数进行验证和校准.最后,利用校正模型,模拟研究楼梯区域对向行人运动过程,并对势能修正参数进行了灵敏度分析,进一步研究模型参数对行人运动的影响.研究表明,该模型可以模拟刻画楼梯区域行人运动过程,同时验证了楼梯区域行人集散效率跟行人到达率与行人路径选择有关.     

Determining an influencing area affecting walking speed on footpath: A case study of a footpath in CBD Bangkok,Thailand

Intuitively, the crowd density in front of a pedestrian will affect his walking speed along a footpath. Nevertheless, the size of the influencing area affecting walking speed has rarely been scrutinized in the past. This study attempts to determine the distance in front of pedestrians that principally affects their walking speed under normal conditions, using a case study of a footpath in Bangkok. We recorded pedestrian activities along a test section of 20 m, with an effective walking width of 2.45 m in the morning and at noon. The morning dataset was extracted for analyzing various influencing distances, ranging from 1 to 20 m in front of the pedestrian. The bi-directional walking speed–pedestrian density models were developed, for each tested distance, using linear regression analysis. It was found that an influencing length in the range of 5–8 m yields the highest correlation coefficients. In the case of high density conditions, the walking speed of the equally-split flow (50:50) was found to be higher than other proportional flow analyzed. The finding has useful implications on the improvement of the walking simulations in mesoscopic models.     

Dynamic characteristics of traffic flow with consideration of pedestrians’ road-crossing behavior

Pedestrians’ road-crossing behavior can often interrupt traffic flow and cause vehicle queueing. In this paper, we propose some moving rules for modeling the interaction of vehicles and pedestrians. The modified visual angle car-following model is presented for the movement of vehicles with consideration of the lateral effect of waiting pedestrians. The pedestrians’ behavior is summarized as consisting of three steps: pedestrian arrival, gap acceptance, and pedestrian crossing. Some characteristic parameters of pedestrians are introduced to characterize pedestrians’ behavior. Simulation results show that the interaction of vehicles and pedestrians lowers the traffic capacity and increases delays to both vehicles and pedestrians.     

Time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation for lattice hydrodynamic model describing pedestrian flow

A thermodynamic theory is formulated to describe the phase transition and critical phenomena in pedestrian flow. Based on the extended lattice hydrodynamic pedestrian model taking the interaction of the next-nearest-neighbor persons into account, the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) equation is derived to describe the pedestrian flow near the critical point through the nonlinear analysis method. The corresponding two solutions, the uniform and the kink solutions, are given. The coexisting curve, spinodal line, and critical point are obtained by the first and second derivatives of the thermodynamic potential.     

Pedestrian choice behavior analysis and simulation of vertical walking facilities in transfer station

Considering the interlayer height, luggage, the difference between queuing pedestrians, and walking speed, the pedestrian choice model of vertical walking facilities is established based on a support vector machine. This model is verified with the pedestrian flow data of Changchun light-rail transfer station and Beijing Xizhimen transfer station. Adding the pedestrian choice model of vertical walking facilities into the pedestrian simulation model which is based on cellular automata, the pedestrian choice behavior is simulated. In the simulation, the effects of the dynamic influence factors are analyzed. To reduce the conflicts between pedestrians in opposite directions, the layout of vertical walking facilities is improved. The simulations indicate that the improved layout of vertical walking facilities can improve the efficiency of pedestrians passing.     

Analytical and numerical study of coupled atomistic-continuum methods for fluids

The stability and convergence rate of coupled atomistic-continuum methods are studied analytically and numerically. These methods couple a continuum model with molecular dynamics through the exchange of boundary conditions in the continuum-particle overlapping region. Different coupling schemes, including velocity–velocity, flux–velocity, velocity–flux and flux–flux, are studied. It is found that the velocity–velocity and flux–velocity schemes are stable. The flux–flux scheme is weakly unstable. The stability of the velocity–flux scheme depends on the parameter T_c which is the length of the time interval between successive exchange of boundary conditions. It is stable when T_c is small and unstable when T_c is large. For steady-state problems, the flux–velocity scheme converges faster than the other coupling schemes.     

基于元胞自动机和复杂网络理论的双向行人流建模

通过设计行人行走倾向性调查实验,分析了行人的行走倾向性特征. 引入前进系数、右倾系数、超越系数以及影响修正系数等对元胞自动机(CA) 基本模型中的转移概率进行修正,建立了考虑行人行走倾向性特征的CA行人仿真模型. 针对该模型中的行人群体,依据k-近邻作用原理,构建行人复杂网络. 通过计算机仿真,揭示了行人流密度、速度和流量的关系以及仿真过程中出现的自组织现象.进一步分析仿真输出的行人流基本参数和行人复杂网络主要特征参数,发现对同一行人流,其平均速度和网络平均路径长度均随着行人流状态的改变而变化.最后, 通过平均路径长度和平均速度的数据拟合,得出两者之间存在着线性负相关关系的结论, 即具有较小网络平均路径长度的行人流具有较高的平均速度.     

A modified heuristics-based model for simulating realistic pedestrian movement behavior

Pedestrian movement simulation models are used in various areas, such as building evacuation, transportation engineering, and safety management of large events. It also provides effective means to uncover underlying mechanisms of collective behaviors. In this work, a modified heuristics-based model is presented. In this model, the potential collisions in the moving process are explicitly considered. Meanwhile, a series of simulations is conducted in two typical scenarios to demonstrate the influence of critical parameters on model performance. It is found that when facing a wide obstacle in a corridor, the larger the visual radius, the earlier the pedestrian starts to make a detour. In addition, when a pedestrian observes a large crowd walking toward him, he chooses to make a detour and moves in the flow in a uniform direction. Furthermore, the model can reproduce the lane formation pedestrian flow phenomena in relatively high-density situations. With the increase of pedestrian visual radius and the weight of potential collision resistance, more stable pedestrian lanes and fewer moving-through-the-counterflow pedestrians can be observed. In terms of model validation, the density-speed relationship of simulation results accords well with that of the published empirical data. Our results demonstrate that the modified heuristics-based model can overcome the deficiency of the original model, and reproduce more realistic pedestrian movement behavior.