An extended mobile lattice gas model allowing pedestrian step size variable

•Propose an extended mobile lattice gas model which allows the walking step sizes of pedestrians be variable.•Simulate the evacuation process of pedestrians from a room with an exit.•Simulate the passenger movement in a real subway station and evaluate four flow management measures.•It is shown that pedestrians with variable step size can evacuate more quickly than those with fixed step size.

An extended mobile lattice gas model with consideration of the pedestrian’s variable walking step size is proposed in this paper. The model first scans various possible step sizes and then determines the movement directions in terms of probabilities which consider the step size factor. Simulation results from a room with one exit show that pedestrians with variable step size can evacuate more quickly than those with fixed step size. The proposed model is applied in a real situation where passengers move in channels of a subway station for line transfer or evacuation. We also investigate four commonly used flow management measures and discuss their effectiveness.