Effects of Heterogeneity on Self-Organized Pedestrian Flows

This investigation focuses on how the heterogeneity of pedestrian characteristics influences the buildup of congestion and affects the efficiency of pedestrian flows. Three commonly used parameters in pedestrian models–-desired speed, body size, and reaction time–-were varied in the population. Real pedestrian flows are heterogeneous regarding pedestrian characteristics. However, not much is known about the way that affects the qualities of the flow and how important it is to the outcomes of microsimulation models. The NOMAD model developed by Delft University of Technology is used to perform simulations in which the aforementioned heterogeneity is introduced. The investigation was carried out by creating bidirectional flows with fixed demands. The flows were analyzed by observing the development of breakdowns, average speeds, and average densities for different demands. It is shown that the influence of heterogeneity on breakdown probabilities and flow efficiency is considerable. To investigate this further, the dynamic lane formation process is investigated in detail. In addition to further insights into the causes for breakdown, it is found that the number of lanes increases with the decrease in heterogeneity in desired speed and in body size. However the opposite happens for heterogeneity in reaction time. Results indicate that heterogeneity in the population has a large impact on the flow quality and should be included in models explicitly to improve prediction performance.