Level of Avoidance in Crossing Pedestrian Flow

This study investigated pedestrians’ avoidance behaviors in crossing flow in order to obtain quantitative criteria for evaluating the difficulty of walking in a crowd. A new graphic illustration method, called the Short-Time Pedestrian Path Diagram, was developed and visually represents the state of a crowd. Under laboratory conditions, the results of our experiment suggest that pedestrians adjust their walking speed, walking route, and/or shoulder angle to avoid striking other people. Each of the pedestrian's avoidance behaviors can be classified into three levels, whose thresholds are defined based on speed, angular velocity, or shoulder angle. It was also observed that the strength of avoidance behaviors is affected by the density of the crowd and the angle that the crossing pedestrian walked into the pedestrian flow.