Empirical Characteristics of Different Types of Pedestrian Streams

Reliable empirical data and proper understanding of pedestrian dynamics are necessary for fire safety design. However, specifications and data in different handbooks as well as experimental studies differ considerably. In this study, series of experiments under laboratory conditions were carried out to study the characteristics of uni- and bidirectional pedestrian streams in straight corridor. The Voronoi method is used to resolve the fine structure of the resulting velocity–density relations and spatial dependence of the measurements. The result shows differences in the shape of the relation for ρ > 1.0 m−2. The maximal specific flow of unidirectional streams is significantly larger than that of all bidirectional streams examined.© 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Asia-Oceania Association for Fire Science and Technology.