Pedestrian flow and crowd operation variables

Book Chapter (2025)
Author(s)

Serge Paul Hoogendoorn (TU Delft - Traffic Systems Engineering)

W. Daamen (TU Delft - Traffic Systems Engineering)

Dorine Duives (TU Delft - Transport, Mobility and Logistics)

Research Group
Traffic Systems Engineering
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.atpp.2025.04.005
More Info
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Publication Year
2025
Language
English
Research Group
Traffic Systems Engineering
Bibliographical Note
Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository as part of the Taverne amendment. More information about this copyright law amendment can be found at https://www.openaccess.nl. Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public. @en
Volume number
15
Pages (from-to)
9-28
ISBN (print)
978-0-443-29396-2
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Abstract

Traffic flow variables are essential for understanding, analysing, and optimising how pedestrians move in urban areas. In this chapter, we introduce the variables that can be used to describe a pedestrian flow. These variables can be microscopic (individual pedestrians), macroscopic (aggregate level), or mesoscopic (distributions of microscopic quantities). We start with the most detailed level of description, a trajectory. The trajectory describes the dynamics of an individual pedestrian as a function of time by its (two-dimensional) position in space. Based on the trajectory, we derive the most relevant microscopic variables, velocity and acceleration. Then, we give different definitions of density, one of the key macroscopic flow variables, by taking a snapshot of a pedestrian traffic situation at a time instant. Density is used to express crowdedness and level-of-service. Next, we look at the space-mean velocity of a pedestrian flow, followed by the third key macroscopic variable, the flow rate. The flow rate is the number of pedestrians passing a cross-section during a certain time period. We end this chapter with the generalised definitions of flow, density, and velocity for a time-space region, and show how they are related.

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