Extraction and quantitative analysis of microscopic evacuation characteristics based on digital image processing

Xuan Liu, Weiguo Song and Jun Zhang

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2009, vol. 388, issue 13, 2717-2726

Abstract: In this study, experiments of single-file pedestrian movement were conducted and the movement parameters of pedestrians were extracted with a digital image processing method based on a mean-shift algorithm. The microscopic characteristics of pedestrian dynamics, including velocity, density, and lateral oscillation, as well as their interrelations, were obtained and analyzed. Firstly, we studied the lateral oscillation phenomena of pedestrian movement. The result indicates that the trajectory of pedestrians presents a wavy form and the amplitude of the oscillation remains about 5.5 cm when the pedestrians move with free walking velocity, which is the velocity when there is no obvious interaction between sequential pedestrians; but when the movement velocity decreases to 0.27 m/s, the amplitude of oscillation increases to 13 cm. With increasing density, the velocity decreases and the amplitude of oscillation presents a linear increase trend. The increasing oscillation amplitude widens the occupation area of a pedestrian with low velocity, so as to make the moving efficiency even worse. Secondly, we studied the frequency of the oscillation; the result indicates that the frequency remains at 2 Hz when pedestrians move with a free walking velocity, but it presents a similar linear decrease trend when the velocity changes to a lower value. The decrease of oscillation frequency is also a negative feedback to the moving efficiency. Thirdly, it is found that with the increase of crowd density, the time interval between two sequential pedestrians increases, though the space gap between them decreases. The quantitative relation between time interval and crowd density is obtained. The study in this paper provides fundamental data and a basic method for understanding pedestrian dynamics, developing and validating evacuation models. The results are also expected to be useful for evacuation design.

Keywords: Evacuation; Pedestrian flow; Digital image processing; Mean-shift algorithm; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437109002131
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:388:y:2009:i:13:p:2717-2726

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2009.03.017

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().