Experimental study of luggage-laden pedestrian flow in walking and running conditions

Luggage-laden pedestrians are important traffic elements especially in public places such as railway stations, airports etc. In this study, experiments were performed with luggage-laden pedestrians walking and running to understand the properties of their movement including the way they carry luggage, their speed and their spatial distribution. It is found that their gender, position and speed all influence the way a pedestrian carries luggage. When walking, there is no apparent difference in speed between luggage-laden pedestrians and those without luggage. Surprisingly, when running, the free speeds of luggage-laden pedestrians are significantly higher. Besides, the distance from a pedestrian to his nth nearest neighbor increases with an increasing proportion of luggage, and an ellipse can be adopted to quantify the influence. When the ratio of luggage reaches 50%, the distances to the right boundary for luggage-laden pedestrians are significantly different from those for luggage-free ones because most people prefer to carry luggage on their right. It is observed that the existence of luggage causes an obvious increase in distance headway in walking cases but has less impact for running. This study provides empirical data about the impact of luggage on pedestrian movement, which can help to improve the precise simulation of luggage-laden pedestrian flow.