Pedestrian dynamics in single-file movement of crowd with different age compositions

TL;DR

This study examines how different age groups in crowds affect pedestrian flow, revealing that mixed-age groups are more prone to jams and that crowd composition significantly influences pedestrian dynamics and facility planning.

Contribution

It provides new insights into how age-related mobility differences impact pedestrian flow and jam formation, emphasizing the importance of crowd composition in design considerations.

Findings

Mixed groups experience more frequent traffic jams.

Jams propagate backward at 0.3-0.4 m/s depending on density.

Fundamental diagrams differ significantly among age groups.

Abstract

An aging population is bringing new challenges to the management of escape routes and facility design in many countries. This paper investigates pedestrian movement properties of crowd with different age compositions. Three pedestrian groups are considered: young student group, old people group and mixed group. It is found that traffic jams occur more frequently in mixed group due to the great differences of mobilities and self-adaptive abilities among pedestrians. The jams propagate backward with a velocity 0.4 m/s for global density around 1.75 m-1 and 0.3 m/s for higher than 2.3 m-1. The fundamental diagrams of the three groups are obviously different from each other and cannot be unified into one diagram by direct non-dimensionalization. Unlike previous studies, three linear regimes in mixed group but only two regimes in young student group are observed in the headway-velocity relation, which is also verified in the fundamental diagram. Different ages and mobilities of pedestrians in a crowd cause the heterogeneity of system and influence the properties of pedestrian dynamics significantly. It indicates that the density is not the only factor leading to jams in pedestrian traffic. The composition of crowd has to be considered in understanding pedestrian dynamics and facility design.