Impact of variable body size on pedestrian dynamics by heuristics-based model

•Propose variable body size into the heuristics-based model.•Reproduce the direction choice of the pedestrian.•The change between bypass and traverse behavior.

In the real world, pedestrians can arch the shoulders or rotate their bodies actively to across the narrow space. The method is helpful to reduce the effective size of the body. In this paper, the impact of variable body size on the direction choice has been investigated by an improved heuristic-based model. In the model, it is assumed that the cost of adjusting body size is a factor in the process to evaluate the optimal direction. In a typical simulation scenario, the pedestrian reluctant to adjust body size will pass by the blocks. On the contrary, the pedestrian caring little about body size will traverse through the exit. There is a direction-choice change behavior between bypass and traverse considering block width and the initial location of the pedestrian.