Microscopic Travel Time Analysis of Bottleneck Experiments

TL;DR

This study analyzes pedestrian behavior at bottlenecks, revealing how individual traits like aggressiveness and overtaking influence travel times and crowd navigation strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic experimental approach to understand individual differences in pedestrian bottleneck movement and their impact on travel time variability.

Findings

Some pedestrians push through faster due to aggressiveness and overtaking willingness.

Travel time variance is explained by individual differences in pushing ability.

Route choice strategies affect overall pedestrian flow and efficiency.

Abstract

This contribution provides a microscopic experimental study of pedestrian motion in front of the bottleneck. Identification of individual pedestrians in conducted experiments enables to explain the high variance of travel time by heterogeneity of the crowd. Some pedestrians are able to push effectively through the crowd, some get trapped in the crowd for significantly longer time. This ability to push through the crowd is associated with the slope of individual linear model of the dependency of the travel time on the number of pedestrians in front of the bottleneck. Further detailed study of the origin of such ability is carried out by means of the route choice, i.e. strategy whether to bypass the crowd or to walk directly through it. The study has revealed that the ability to push through the crowd is a combination of aggressiveness in conflicts and willingness to overtake the crowd.