Experimental study of pedestrian counterflow in a corridor

TL;DR

This study experimentally investigates pedestrian counterflow in a 2-meter corridor, analyzing how flow, speed, and lane formation are affected by different group sizes and directions, revealing increased fluxes and asymmetries.

Contribution

It provides empirical data on pedestrian counterflow dynamics, including flow rates, speeds, and lane formation, highlighting the effects of group size and directionality.

Findings

Counterflow increases overall flux compared to unidirectional flow.

Larger asymmetries observed between left- and right-hand traffic.

Flow with counterflow exceeds flow without counterflow in all cases.

Abstract

In this work the results of a pedestrian counterflow experiment in a corridor of a width of 2 meter are presented. 67 participants were divided into two groups with varying relative and absolute size and walked in opposite direction through a corridor. The video footage taken from the experiment was evaluated for passing times, walking speeds, fluxes and lane-formation including symmetry breaking. The results include comparatively large fluxes and speeds as well as a maximal asymmetry between left- and right-hand traffic. The sum of flow and counterflow in any case turns out to be larger than the flow in all situations without counterflow.