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.     

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.     

基于元胞自动机的行人视线受影响的疏散流仿真研究

基于元胞自动机对视线受影响的行人疏散流进行仿真研究.模型根据行人视野半径将疏散空间划分为可见安全出口区域、可见墙壁区域和盲目区域;利用两个动态参数描述行人在不同移动区域内的疏散特征,从而决定行人的行为选择,包括行人定向移动、沿墙移动和正常疏散移动等行为.仿真研究了行人在墙壁上存在疏散指示标志的疏散空间内,视线受影响时采用随机定向寻墙沿墙移动疏散策略的情况下,行人视野半径对行人疏散时间的影响.研究表明,行人疏散时间不仅受行人视野半径的影响,而且还与安全出口的宽度和安全出口利用率有关.     

Effect of following strength on pedestrian counter flow

This paper proposes a modified lattice gas model to simulate pedestrian counter flow by considering the effect of following strength which can lead to appropriate responses to some complicated situations.Periodic and open boundary conditions are adopted respectively.The simulation results show that the presented model can reproduce some essential features of pedestrian counter flows,e.g.,the lane formation and segregation effect.The fundamental diagrams show that the complete jamming density is independent of the system size only when the width W and the length L are larger than some critical values respectively,and the larger asymmetrical conditions can better avoid the occurrence of deadlock phenomena.For the mixed pedestrian flow,it can be found that the jamming cluster is mainly caused by those walkers breaking the traffic rules,and the underlying mechanism is analysed.Furthermore,the comparison of simulation results and the experimental data is performed,it is shown that this modified model is reasonable and more realistic to simulate and analyse pedestrian counter flow.     

Simulation of exit choosing in pedestrian evacuation with consideration of the direction visual field

A modified floor field model is proposed to simulate the pedestrian evacuation behavior in a room with multiple exits by considering the direction visual field. Direction visual field is used to describe the pedestrian’s prediction on the propagation of pedestrian flow along some directions. The proposed model outperforms most of the similar models developed so far in such scenario that pedestrians are initially distributed in a room’s specified zone. Simulation results show that the consideration of direction visual field can better reproduce the evacuation process and reduce evacuation time apparently. Sensitivity analyses of the model parameters are presented.     

A modification of the Social Force Model can reproduce experimental data of pedestrian flows in normal conditions

The Social Force Model presents some limitations when describing the experimental data of pedestrian flows in normal conditions — in particular the specific flow rates for different door widths and the fundamental diagram.In the present work we propose a modification of this model that consists of a self-stopping mechanism to prevent a simulated pedestrian from continuously pushing over other pedestrians.With this simple change, the modified model is able to reproduce the specific flow rates and fundamental diagram of pedestrian flows for normal conditions, as reported in the literature.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Multi-grid simulation of pedestrian counter flow with topological interaction

We investigate the dynamics of pedestrian counter flow by using a multi-grid topological pedestrian counter flow model.In the model,each pedestrian occupies multi-rather than only one grid,and interacts with others in the form of topological interaction,which means that a moving pedestrian interacts with a fixed number of those nearest neighbours coming from the opposite direction to determine his/her own moving direction.Thus the discretization of space and time are much finer,the decision making process of the pedestrian is more reliable,which all together makes the moving behaviour and boundary conditions much more realistic.When compared with field observations,it can be found that the modified model is able to reproduce well fitted pedestrian collective behaviour such as dynamical variation of lane formation,clustering of pedestrians in the same direction,etc.The fundamental diagram produced by the model fits also well with field data in the free flow region.Further analyses indicate that with the increase of the size of pedestrian counter flow system,it becomes harder for the system to transit into a jamming state,while the increase of interaction range does not change the transition point from free flow to jamming flow in the multi-grid topological counter flow model.It is also found that the asymmetry of the injection rate of pedestrians on the boundaries has direct influence on the process of transition from free flow to jamming flow,i.e.,a symmetric injection makes it easier for the system to transit into jamming flow.     

A Lattice Model for Bidirectional Pedestrian Flow on Gradient Road

Ramps and sloping roads appear everywhere in the built environment. It is obvious that the movement pattern of people in the sloping path may be different as compared with the pattern on level roads. Previously, most of the studies, especially the mathematical and simulation models, on pedestrian movement consider the flow at level routes. This study proposes a new lattice model for bidirectional pedestrian flow on gradient road. The stability condition is obtained by using linear stability theory. The nonlinear analysis method is employed to derive the modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) equation, and the space of pedestrian flow is divided into three regions: the stable region, the metastable region, and the unstable region respectively. Furthermore, the time-dependent Ginzburg—Landan (TDGL) equation is deduced and solved through the reductive perturbation method. Finally, we present detailed results obtained from the model, and it is found that the stability of the model is enhanced in uphill situation while reduced in downhill situation with increasing slope.     

Experiment and modeling of exit-selecting behaviors during a building evacuation

The evacuation process in a teaching building with two neighboring exits is investigated by means of experiment and modeling. The basic parameters such as flow, density and velocity of pedestrians in the exit area are measured. The exit-selecting phenomenon in the experiment is analyzed, and it is found that pedestrians prefer selecting the closer exit even though the other exit is only a little far. In order to understand the phenomenon, we reproduce the experiment process with a modified biased random walk model, in which the preference of closer exit is achieved using the drift direction and the drift force. Our simulation results afford a calibrated value of the drift force, especially when it is 0.56, there is good agreement between the simulation results and the experimental results on the number of pedestrians selecting the closer exit, the average velocity through the exits, the cumulative distribution of the instantaneous velocity and the fundamental diagram of the flow through exits. According to the further simulation results, it is found that pedestrians tend to select the exit with shorter distance to them, especially when the people density is small or medium. But if the density is large enough, the flow rates of the two exits will become comparable because of the detour behaviors. It reflects the fact that a crowd of people may not be rational to optimize the usage of multi-exits, especially in an emergency.     

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.     

Simulation study of pedestrian flow in a station hall during the Spring Festival travel rush

The Spring Festival is the most important festival in China. How can passengers go home smoothly and quickly during the Spring Festival travel rush, especially when emergencies of terrible winter weather happen? By modifying the social force model, we simulated the pedestrian flow in a station hall. The simulation revealed casualties happened when passengers escaped from panic induced by crowd turbulence. The results suggest that passenger numbers, ticket checking patterns, baggage volumes, and anxiety can affect the speed of passing through the waiting corridor. Our approach is meaningful in understanding the feature of a crowd moving and can be served to reproduce mass events. Therefore, it not only develops a realistic modeling of pedestrian flow but also is important for a better preparation of emergency management.     

The application of computational fluid dynamics to pedestrian level wind safety problem induced by high-rise buildings

In this paper, the pedestrian level wind safety problem induced by high-rise buildings has been studied using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes Fluent. The verification by use of wind tunnel data shows that Fluent can fairly reproduce the flow field in the areas adjacent to the structure when a realizable k-ε turbulence model is adopted in calculations. The results of the numerical simulations including seven cases show that the existence of high-rise buildings does increase the wind hazard probability at the pedestrian level; furthermore, the wind direction, the geometric size of structures and the layout of structures can obviously affect the pedestrian level wind environment. However, trees on the pavement do not contribute much in reducing the wind hazard probability.     

Dynamics of emotional contagion in dense pedestrian crowds

In places with high-density pedestrian movements, irrational emotions can quickly spread out under emergency, which may eventually lead to asphyxiation and crushing. It was noticed that a pedestrian's emotion in crowd would change as a result of the influence from other pedestrians. Thus, to explore the dynamics of emotion contagion process in dense pedestrians, two types of pedestrian emotions, i.e., negative and positive have been identified. Taking into account the emotional transit of a pedestrian, a crowd movement model is established in the present paper. We simulate pedestrian movement in a region with periodic boundary condition to study the dynamics of emotional contagion in dense crowds. Influences of the initial negative pedestrian proportion, pedestrian crowd density, emotion influence radius, and dose factor on the transition of overall crowd emotion state have been investigated. We expect this study could provide theoretical suggestions for crowd management.     

The excluded-volume effect in microscopic pedestrian simulations

We propose a pedestrian position update rule, which is added to a microscopic pedestrian model to avoid pedestrian overlap. In the rule, the step size of a pedestrian moving in a selected direction at each update is in inverse proportion to the repulsive actions imposed by other pedestrians moving in a direction with an exponential rate. The positions of the pedestrians are then updated in each small time interval. In this way, a barrier between the pedestrians can be generated, and after updating their positions the pedestrians do not overlap with each other. The modified model is compared to the original model through a simulation of the evacuation process of pedestrians in a closed area. The simulation results indicate that the modified model is superior to the original model in several aspects.     

The fundamental diagram of pedestrian model with slow reaction

The slow-to-start models are a classical cellular automata model in simulating vehicle traffic. However, to our knowledge, the slow-to-start effect has not been considered in modeling pedestrian dynamics. We verify the similar behavior between pedestrian and vehicle, and propose an new lattice gas (LG) model called the slow reaction (SR) model to describe the pedestrian’s delayed reaction in single-file movement. We simulate and reproduce Seyfried’s field experiments at the Research Centre Jülich, and use its empirical data to validate our SR model. We compare the SR model with the standard LG model. We tested different probabilities of slow reaction _ps$p_s$ in the SR model and found the simulation data of _ps=0.3$p_s=0.3$ fit the empirical data best. The RMS error of the mean velocity of the SR model is smaller than that of the standard LG model. In the range of _ps=0.1–0.3$p_s=0.1–0.3$, our fundamental diagram between velocity and density by simulation coincides with field experiments. The distribution of individual velocity in the fundamental diagram in the SR model agrees with the empirical data better than that of the standard LG model. In addition, we observe stop-and-go waves and phase separation in pedestrian flow by simulation. We reproduced the phenomena of uneven distribution of interspaces by the SR model while the standard LG model did not. The SR model can reproduce the evolution of spatio-temporal structures of pedestrian flow with higher fidelity to Seyfried’s experiments than the standard LG model.     

Self-organized phenomena of pedestrian counterflow through a wide bottleneck in a channel

The pedestrian counterflow through a bottleneck in a channel shows a variety of flow patterns due to self-organization.In order to reveal the underlying mechanism,a cellular automaton model was proposed by incorporating the floor field and the view field which reflects the global information of the studied area and local interactions with others.The presented model can well reproduce typical collective behaviors,such as lane formation.Numerical simulations were performed in the case of a wide bottleneck and typical flow patterns at different density ranges were identified as rarefied flow,laminar flow,interrupted bidirectional flow,oscillatory flow,intermittent flow,and choked flow.The effects of several parameters,such as the size of view field and the width of opening,on the bottleneck flow are also analyzed in detail.The view field plays a vital role in reproducing self-organized phenomena of pedestrian.Numerical results showed that the presented model can capture key characteristics of bottleneck flows.     

Simulation of pedestrian evacuation based on an improved dynamic parameter model

An improved dynamic parameter model is presented based on cellular automata. The dynamic parameters, including direction parameter, empty parameter, and cognition parameter, are formulated to simplify tactically the process of making decisions for pedestrians. The improved model reflects the judgement of pedestrians on surrounding conditions and the action of choosing or decision. According to the two-dimensional cellular automaton Moore neighborhood we establish the pedestrian moving rule, and carry out corresponding simulations of pedestrian evacuation. The improved model considers the impact of pedestrian density near exits on the evacuation process. Simulated and experimental results demonstrate that the improvement makes sense due to the fact that except for the spatial distance to exits, people also choose an exit according to the pedestrian density around exits. The impact factors α, β, and γ are introduced to describe transition payoff, and their optimal values are determined through simulation. Moreover, the effects of pedestrian distribution, pedestrian density, and the width of exits on the evacuation time are discussed. The optimal exit layout, i.e., the optimal position and width, is offered. The comparison between the simulated results obtained with the improved model and that from a previous model and experiments indicates that the improved model can reproduce experimental results well. Thus, it has great significance for further study, and important instructional meaning for pedestrian evacuation so as to reduce the number of casualties.