High statistics measurements of pedestrian dynamics

Abstract: Understanding the complex behavior of pedestrians walking in crowds is a challenge for both science and technology. In particular, obtaining reliable models for crowd dynamics, capable of exhibiting qualitatively and quantitatively the observed emergent features of pedestrian flows, may have a remarkable impact for matters as security, comfort and structural serviceability. Aiming at a quantitative understanding of basic aspects of pedestrian dynamics, extensive and high-accuracy measurements of pedestrian trajectories have been performed. More than 100.000 real-life, time-resolved trajectories of people walking along a trafficked corridor in a building of the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, have been recorded. A measurement strategy based on Microsoft Kinect\texttrademark has been used; the trajectories of pedestrians have been analyzed as ensemble data. The main result consists of a statistical descriptions of pedestrian characteristic kinematic quantities such as positions and fundamental diagrams, possibly conditioned to local crowding status (e.g., one or more pedestrian(s) walking, presence of co-flows and counter-flows).