Ahmed

Dynamics of pedestrian movement in a public space 1

Movement through a public space is at the heart of the urban experience and an important
factor in generating life and activity. To design successful public spaces, it is essential to
understand movement, especially that of pedestrians. Since the early 1970’s the movement of
pedestrians in spaces such as shopping malls or markets has been studied. After the 9/11 and the
London bombings evacuation of people from buildings and transport hubs is the focus of
research. However much study and research needs to be done in the area. Here we will be
discussing some of the approaches for generic pedestrian movement in a space and the factors
those influence the decision of an individual to opt for a certain route.
Initially most researchers believed that the street pattern of an area determined movement
on it but it is in fact the people that make the decisions to travel on those streets. So it is the
people that need to be studied to predict traffic in a space. (Transport 1-16)In the past years,
several models for the simulation of pedestrian flow have been proposed. Most models focus on
a specific aspect of pedestrian movement, which can often be distinguished on the basis of
geographical scale — from the micro-scale movement of obstacle avoidance, through the meso-
scale of individuals planning multi-stop shopping trips, up to the macro-scale of the overall flows
of masses of people between places.
Pedestrian movement might seem chaotic, but an in depth study shows that patterns can
be detected, stimulated and then replicated to assist in a successful design. Pedestrian flow has
even been studied in terms of fluid dynamics. Inspired by gas-kinetics, this model treats
pedestrian crowds like molecules in a dilute gas (Henderson 229:381–383). Molecule movement
in a gas is assumed to be chaotic and thus the speed and position of the molecules can’t be
determined exactly. Instead they are determined using a density function i.e. the inflow/outflow
of people in a given time frame, also taking into consideration the frequency of interaction
opportunities. Nonetheless a realistic gas-kinetic or fluid-dynamic theory for pedestrians must
contain corrections that take into account particular interactions, i.e. avoidance and deceleration
maneuvers caused by distraction or attraction to a particular destination or/ object. Also for
practical applications a direct simulation of individual pedestrian motion is favorable, because a
numerical solution of the fluid-dynamic equations is very difficult to obtain.
While considering pedestrian as molecules, one must consider Newton’s second law of
motion. The pedestrian is a structure-less molecule whose trajectory is determined by external
forces. Behaving as a group the movement will be influenced by the surrounding pedestrians,
obstacles and points of interest (D. Helbing and P. Molnar 4282–4286). Each pedestrian has his
own pace or speeds determined by the destination. Over time similar encounters produce similar
reactions to the extent that it becomes automatic. People tend to move in a group each
maintaining a personal sphere of space. An attractive force is generated when pedestrians
travelling under congested conditions in the same direction and maintaining similar desired
speeds. Following such groups will minimize journey time for other pedestrians.
A certain force of repulsion is experienced in the proximity of boundaries or obstacles
due to a subconscious fear of injury. In contrast pedestrians are sometimes attracted by other
persons (friends, street artists, etc.) or objects (e.g. window displays). But it is important to note
that these forces don’t influence the body but the“motivation to act”. The pedestrian movement
is normally anisotropic. That means that the action in front of the pedestrian is more important
 Ahmed

than the action behind him. Humans have the ability to foresee the actions of other humans and
thus they can react due to actions made by other humans.1 2

This attraction and repulsion behavior is accentuated in case of a bottle neck. While at
free-flow conditions, pedestrians will walk in the center of the bottleneck, thereby maximizing
the distance between themselves and the walls. During capacity conditions, two trails or lanes in
opposite directions are formed: pedestrians tend to walk diagonally behind each other. Also it
turns out that only a small amount of the width is used at the location of the bottleneck (namely,
the width of the bottleneck itself). Further upstream, the pedestrian movement ‘spreads out’
covering more or less the entire available width (Daamen, W, & Hoogendoorn, SP 7). Another
phenomenon is the one way opening. In case of a confined door way, one sided circulation takes
place with people lining up diagonally behind one person to minimize flow resistance. This
maintains until an opening is found on the other side and then the conditions reverse.
Such restrictions force people to behave in a certain manner. The space itself, the
built up area around it and the opportunities provided to each pedestrian mold their interaction
with the space and the dynamics of their motion. Desire and an appreciation of the activity and
movement within a space are based on opportunities to linger or sit and watch people go by.
Places can accentuate social interaction and serve as an important background scaffolding
for ongoing interaction (Wiberg 11). But places can also be designed to encourage direct social
interaction between persons. Places can in fact be designed to trigger social interaction, i.e. to go
from a passive mode of interaction to a more direct and active mode. A corridor encourages
lateral interaction but the nature of the space changes the activity. A wide pathway through a
park will allow pedestrian to wander while the same setting in a building corridor will force the
passerby to acknowledge the person coming towards them in the corridor.
However here we have just discussed the flow of pedestrian in a normal free flowing
environment. The activity dynamics are drastically different in case of a panic, emergency
evacuation, or peak rush hour which has been dealt with in a few researches beyond the scope of
this review. Further work still needs to be done in this field as the human behavioral movement
is a complex subject. The interaction and movement dynamics of a liner corridor have yet to be
explored, be it the green belt between a double road, a buffer green zone between a highway or
river and residential area. The physical space of linear dynamics confines people and drawing
from the work mentioned above, a more follow-the-leader dynamic evolves which conserves
energy and maximizes the attraction element. Almost like the bottle neck the confined width
brings people together challenging their personal “sphere”.
For pedestrians the connection between ‘places’ is important and successful public places
are generally integrated within local movement patterns. The motivation to travel is indeed the
destination. But the travel from point A to B can never be completely predicted. In most cases
the influencing factors can be assessed and a generic behavior pattern can be predicted. On the
basis of which a space can be optimized for public use.

1
Other works of Helbing on similar themes include “Self-Organization Phenomena in Pedestrian,” Environment and Planning B:
Planning and Design volume 28 (2001): 361 -83. “Crowds Traffic and related self-driven many-particles systems,” Reviews of
modern physics (October 2001
 Ahmed

Works Cited
3
D. Helbing and P. Molnar. "Social force model for pedestrian dynamics." Physical Review E, 51
(May 1995):4282–4286.
Daamen, W, & Hoogendoorn, SP . " Experimental research of pedestrian walking behaviour,
Transportation Research." Washington DC: National Academy Press, 2003.
Henderson, L. F. "The statistics of crowd fluids." Nature (February 1971): 229:381–383.
Transport, Ministry of. Traffic In Towns: A Study of the Long Term Problems. London:
Ministry of Transport, 1961.
Wiberg, M. "An Architecturally Situated Approach to Place-based Mobile Interaction Design."
Location Awareness & Community workshop at the 9th European Conference on
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work . Germany, 2007.