A comparative study on the bottleneck flow between preschool children and adults under different movement motivations
Problem & Motivation
Preschool children age 3-5 years old are more vulnerable and face with higher risks both in daily life and in emergencies due to their insufficient fundamental movement skills. More children attend kindergartens and it is unrealistic to ensure that children are under one-on-one supervision all the time. It is necessary for children to move in groups under the commands of the tutors when facing emergency in kindergartens. It is necessary to pay attention to children’s safety and to understand their movement characteristics.
Bottleneck as a common restricted geometry in most pedestrian facilities has arouse consideration of researchers in the past few decades. However, researchers mainly focus on the movement of adults, leading to the lack of data and special behavior characteristics of children. It is urgent to study children's evacuation characteristics through bottlenecks based on laboratory experiment.
Methods
We analyze bottleneck flow of preschool children in a laboratory experiment. The pedestrian flows of children and adults under different movement motivations are compared. The relations between flow and bottleneck width for children and adults are unified. Arch-like and teardrop-shape distributions are observed for the children’ and adults’ movement respectively.
Related Publication
Li, H., Zhang, J., Yang, L., Song, W., Yuen, K.K.R., 2020. A comparative study on the bottleneck flow between preschool children and adults under different movement motivations. Safety science 121, 30-41.
Download: [paper]
