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arXiv · 1206.3084

Quantitative analysis of pedestrian counterflow in a cellular automaton model

Stefan Nowak·Andreas Schadschneider
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Abstract

Pedestrian dynamics exhibits various collective phenomena. Here we study bidirectional pedestrian flow in a floor field cellular automaton model. Under certain conditions, lane formation is observed. Although it has often been studied qualitatively, e.g., as a test for the realism of a model, there are almost no quantitative results, neither empirically nor theoretically. As basis for a quantitative analysis we introduce an order parameter which is adopted from the analysis of colloidal suspensions. This allows to determine a phase diagram for the system where four different states (free flow, disorder, lanes, gridlock) can be distinguished. Although the number of lanes formed is fluctuating, lanes are characterized by a typical density. It is found that the basic floor field model overestimates the tendency towards a gridlock compared to experimental bounds. Therefore an anticipation mechanism is introduced which reduces the jamming probability.

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Stefan Nowak, Andreas Schadschneider. 2012-06-14. Quantitative analysis of pedestrian counterflow in a cellular automaton model. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.85.066128

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