2022 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Study on the influencing mechanism of the obstacle layout to improve the pedestrian egress
| Project/Area Number |
21K14377
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| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
カ ギョウロ 東京大学, 先端科学技術研究センター, 特任助教 (90898842)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2021-04-01 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | pedestrian / obstacle / pedestrian management / egress / crowd / obstacle bottleneck / fundamental diagram |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Referring to the experimental analysis we conducted last year, we developed the modeling and simulation part this year. In previous experiments, the obstacle created a bottleneck that reduced the pedestrian walkable width, and different obstacle layouts correspond to different egress efficiency. To reproduce this result, we developed a mathematical approach that estimates egress efficiency based on the density-flow rate fundamental diagram (FD). This approach abstracts the walking scenario as a scheme with bottlenecks as links and different regions as nodes. We successfully reproduced the egress times under different layouts, from which we estimated a reasonable range of obstacle size and obstacle-exit width that maintains stable egress efficiency.
On the other hand, we explored the different shapes of the FD under various conditions based on real pedestrian trajectory data, as the shape of the FD affects the simulation results. Specifically, we found that during rush hours at railway stations, a counterintuitive high-density-high-velocity FD can be observed. We expect that the high-density-high-velocity FD is due to the variation of the pedestrian's desired velocity, which is supported by the simulation results based on a modified agent-based social force model, where higher density corresponds to a higher velocity. This suggests that, besides the geometrical layout of the obstacle, it is also significant to focus on the pedestrian's status when exploring the obstacle's influence.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
We finished the modeling and simulation part as we planned. The variation of egress efficiency under different obstacle layouts has been reproduced in our numerical simulation which takes advantage of the fundamental diagram (FD). Besides, we explored the features of the FD based on empirical data, which could help us examine different pedestrian conditions, thus helping to explore the influence of obstacle layout on a more generalized pedestrian environment.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In the last year, we plan to combine our findings both in experiments and numerical simulation. Accordingly, we could reproduce the three-phase influence of the obstacle under different pedestrian conditions and obstacle layouts, which is the main objective of this research, and is expected to help with the actual design of obstacles in real life.
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| Causes of Carryover |
The incurring amount was expected to be used for crowd experiments. During this fiscal year (2022), we used the amount for experiments properly. However, due to COVID-19 in the last fiscal year (2021), we did not conduct enough experiments that have been planned, which is the main reason for the incurring amount for the next year. In the next year, we plan to use it for further crowd experiments, as well as for the publication of the corresponding results at academic conferences and papers.
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Research Products
(8 results)
