Experimental Study on Pedestrian Flow Under Different Age Groups and Movement Motivations

In this work, we performed series of laboratory experiments with preschool students, university students and the elderly older than 60 years old. From these experiments, different movement behaviors among these groups are observed. For example, the preschool children are the most active ones and like competition but easy to fall, while the elderly move always very carefully. High movement motivation leads to competition among pedestrians, which results in different spatial-temporal distribution of the density and speed compared to normal movement of adults. Based on the Voronoi method, the spatial-temporal distribution of density is observed and compared for different types of age groups with movement motivations. It is found that the movement motivation has strong influence on the density distribution for semicircle and teardrop shaped high-density regions are observed from the experiments. These findings can be useful for the improvement of pedestrian modelling and design of pedestrian facilities.