Microscopic Travel Time Analysis of Bottleneck Experiments

Abstract

This contribution provides a microscopic experimental study of pedestrian motion in front of the bottleneck. Identification of individual pedestrians in conducted experiments enables to explain the high variance of travel time by heterogeneity of the crowd. Some pedestrians are able to push effectively through the crowd, some get trapped in the crowd for significantly longer time. This ability to push through the crowd is associated with the slope of individual linear model of the dependency of the travel time on the number of pedestrians in front of the bottleneck. Further detailed study of the origin of such ability is carried out by means of the route choice, i.e. strategy whether to bypass the crowd or to walk directly through it. The study has revealed that the ability to push through the crowd is a combination of aggressiveness in conflicts and willingness to overtake the crowd.