Interactive Behavior Characteristics of Pedestrian Traffic on Stairways

Stairways serve as important walking facilities for pedestrians, but research of pedestrian traffic on stairways is not sufficient. This paper focuses on the characteristics study of interactive behavior on stairways, including overtaking behavior on one-way stairways and opposite avoidance behavior on two-way stairways. Two flights of stairways in a metro station in Shanghai, China were selected to collect the behavior data. Through the data analysis it is revealed that the characteristics of overtaking behavior and opposite avoidance behavior have both similarities and differences. In terms of similarities, neither of these two types of behavior would occur under extremely low or high densities. While under other ranges of density, their occurrence intensity increase first, and then decrease with the increase of density. The difference of the two types of behavior lies in their occurrence intensity within a low to medium density range, i.e., rapid increase for overtaking but keeping stable for opposite avoidance when density increases. It is pointed out that the available space for overtaking and avoidance is the main factor contributing to the above similarities and differences. And the correlation analysis between available space and occurrence intensity of the interactive behavior is also conducted to reveal their relations. Findings of this research are expected to enhance the knowledge of pedestrian behavior on stairways for a better stairway traffic design and level of service evaluation.