An experimental study of the effect of the inertness pedestrian on evacuation process

During the actual evacuation, the movement of pedestrians is affected by obstacles and low-speed pedestrians in front of the exit. To investigate the impact of an inertness pedestrian on the evacuation process, a laboratory experiment was carried out. The movement trajectories of pedestrians were obtained automatically by the PeTrack software. Pedestrians’ trajectories with speed, exit order and its influence factors, and velocity-density profiles were calculated and analyzed. Pedestrians egressed the room at a slow speed, the inertness pedestrian further reduced the movement speed of pedestrians. The initial distance to the exit, the location of the right or left in the room, and distance to the inertness pedestrian have significant impacts on pedestrian exit order through a linear regression model. As shown in density velocity profiles, a high-speed-high-density zone at the exit and a low-speed-high-density zone around the inertness pedestrian can be found. The superposition of two high-density zones forms a ribbon pattern congestion zone along the lateral direction of the exit. These two high-density zones should be paid close attention in the case of emergency crowd management.