Citation

Shahhoseini Z, Sarvi M. Transp. Res. Rec. 2018; 2672(20): 121-132.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0361198118796714

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The need for developing reliable and rigorous models that can replicate and make predictions of pedestrian crowd evacuations has necessitated an understanding of the impact of architecture on individuals' interactions with their surroundings and the behavioral rules that govern their movements. Due to the challenges of providing such behavioral data from natural evacuations and previous crowd incidents, simulation-based and laboratory-based evacuation experiments have recently been employed as innovative data-provision approaches to study crowd behavior notably under emergency conditions. This study explores pioneer experiments of emergency escape with a view to investigating the relationship between spatial constraints and collective behavior of human crowds. Here, we make use of two types of empirical and analytical data obtained from a large number of well-controlled laboratory and evacuation simulation experiments. This study presents findings corresponding to how and to what extent the presence of conflicting layouts in egress areas, particularly merging corridors, affect the collective motion of pedestrians. The focus of attention will be on measures of performance at macroscopic level derived from both observations. Our results suggested that the movement patterns observed in both types of experiments are sensitive to the angle between the two merging streams and the symmetry/asymmetry of the merging layouts, with symmetric layouts almost invariably outperforming the asymmetric counterparts. Also, within each symmetry/asymmetry structural type, the angle at which the flows combined with each other affected the efficiency of discharge. Our findings provide further evidence as to the significant role of the architectural structure of the movement area in facilitating the traffic flow of heavy crowds of pedestrians.

Language: en