The Effects of Synchronization of Pedestrian Flow through Multiple Bottlenecks – Train Egress Study

conference paper

English

Detailed experimental studies of pedestrian dynamics in interaction with infrastructure enable to predict the flow through a bottleneck with respect to its width. However, the inner structure of crowd has not been much considered so far. This work extends some microscopic studies to more complex scenarios of multiple consecutive bottlenecks with merging of pedestrian streams. The analysed data were aquired in two experiments: double-deck rail car egress experiment and laboratory egress experiment, both conducted at Czech Technical University in Prague. The train egress experiment consisted of a set of trials simulating different evacuation scenarios and covering variety of conditions as compulsory exit selection or emergency braking. The data were compared with the results of a laboratory egress experiment where four groups merged at two levels of bottlenecks to egress at one general exit. To describe the phenomena of synchronization and the structure of crowd, the time-headway distribution is examined at each bottleneck. The gradual synchronization of time-headways is shown to appear in the network of rooms connected by doors. On the contrary, the train egress shows rather spontaneous lane formation in the corridor-like structure leading to a synchronized two-lane flow.

Pedestrian dynamics; bottleneck flow; egress experiment; synchronization effect; train evacuation.

BUKÁČEK, M.; NAJMANOVÁ, H.; HRABÁK, P.

17. 10. 2016

University of Science and Technology of China Press

Shanghai

978-7-312-04077-1

Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics (PED2016)

105

112

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