Pedestrian flow characteristics through bends: Effects of angle and desired speed

This study quantitatively described how the desired speed, which may reflect the emergency level, and the angle of bend affect the pedestrian flow by comparing fundamental diagrams derived from trajectory data collected through laboratory experiments. Results showed that the slow running (≈ 2.8 m/s speed) can increase the maximum flow through a bend by around 60 % compared to normal walking (≈ 1.4 m/s speed) regardless of the turning angle. Further, it was found that the turning angle of the bend has a stronger negative impact on the moving speed of crowds under running conditions. Compared to the turning angle, congestion level seemed to have a minor impact on the average moving speed through the bends. On the other hand, for 90° and 180° bends, the variations of the speed were observed to decrease with the increase of density which indicated that although congestion level deteriorated the flow conditions at bends, it homogenized the collective moving speed of pedestrians.