Microscopic Pedestrian Flow Characteristics: Development of an Image Processing Data Collection and Simulation Model
This work addresses the need for better tools to analyze pedestrian traffic flow, which is incremental as it builds on existing methods for data collection and simulation in transportation engineering.
The researchers tackled the challenge of understanding microscopic pedestrian flow by developing image processing data collection systems and a simulation model, finding that pedestrian speeds and accelerations follow normal distributions with means of 1.38 m/s and 0.68 m/s², respectively, and validated the model with real-world data.
Microscopic pedestrian studies consider detailed interaction of pedestrians to control their movement in pedestrian traffic flow. The tools to collect the microscopic data and to analyze microscopic pedestrian flow are still very much in its infancy. The microscopic pedestrian flow characteristics need to be understood. Manual, semi manual and automatic image processing data collection systems were developed. It was found that the microscopic speed resemble a normal distribution with a mean of 1.38 m/second and standard deviation of 0.37 m/second. The acceleration distribution also bear a resemblance to the normal distribution with an average of 0.68 m/ square second. A physical based microscopic pedestrian simulation model was also developed. Both Microscopic Video Data Collection and Microscopic Pedestrian Simulation Model generate a database called NTXY database. The formulations of the flow performance or microscopic pedestrian characteristics are explained. Sensitivity of the simulation and relationship between the flow performances are described. Validation of the simulation using real world data is then explained through the comparison between average instantaneous speed distributions of the real world data with the result of the simulations. The simulation model is then applied for some experiments on a hypothetical situation to gain more understanding of pedestrian behavior in one way and two way situations, to know the behavior of the system if the number of elderly pedestrian increases and to evaluate a policy of lane-like segregation toward pedestrian crossing and inspects the performance of the crossing. It was revealed that the microscopic pedestrian studies have been successfully applied to give more understanding to the behavior of microscopic pedestrians flow, predict the theoretical and practical situation and evaluate some design policies before its implementation.