Quantification of bottleneck effects for different types of facilities

TL;DR

This study empirically investigates how different facility geometries like narrowings, corners, and T-junctions affect pedestrian flow capacity, revealing shape and length dependencies and limitations of a universal flow model.

Contribution

It provides a comparative empirical analysis of various facility types, highlighting how geometry influences pedestrian flow reduction and questioning the applicability of a single fundamental diagram.

Findings

Flow reduction depends on shape and length of narrowing

Maximum flow at corners is about 1.45 m/s, lowest among studied facilities

Universal fundamental diagram is limited in describing different geometries

Abstract

Restrictions of pedestrian flow could be triggered by directional changes, merging of streams and other changes or disturbances causing effects similar to bottlenecks given by geometrical narrowings. In this contribution we analyze empirically how the types of the changes or disturbances influence the capacity of a facility. For this purpose four types of facilities including a short narrowing, a long narrowing, a corner and a T-junction are investigated. It is found that the reduction of pedestrian flow depends on the shape and the length of the narrowing. The maximum observed flow of the corner (about 1.45 (m.s)-1) is the lowest in all facilities studied, whereas that of the short narrowing is highest. The finding indicates that the usage of an unique fundamental diagram for the description of pedestrian flow at different kind of geometrical narrowings is limited.