Contrastive study on the single-file pedestrian movement of the elderly and other age groups
Problem & Motivation
Compared with young people, elders with mobility impairments and disease increment are in face with higher risks in their daily life especially in the transportation system. It is of great significance to study the movement properties of elderly pedestrians for the aging of population is a social phenomenon around the world.
Studies of the pedestrian movement mainly focus on the young adults. The elderly movement characteristic lacks experimental study and data proof especially under the high density.
Methods
The single-file experiments were carried out to study the movement of the elderly pedestrians. The global density variation range of 0.31-2.18m-2 was achieved by changing the number of people in the scene. We obtained the fundamental diagrams of the elderly under high density and analyzed the self-organize phenomenon of stop-and-go. In addition, a comparative analysis with the experiments of other age groups was studied.
We gained the relation between headway and speed of the elderly crowd which can be applied in the pedestrian model. A comparative analysis with the experiments of young and mixed groups was studied. It is found that age was not the only factor affecting pedestrian movement but the heterogeneity of the population and familiarity of pedestrians had significant influences. Linear fitting and nonlinear fitting are both appropriate to describe the relations.
Related Publication
Ren, Xiangxia, Jun Zhang, and Weiguo Song. Contrastive study on the single-file pedestrian movement of the elderly and other age groups. Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment 2019.9 (2019): 093402.
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