Abstract
The effects of social groups on pedestrian dynamics , especially in evacuation scenarios , have attracted some interest recently. However, due to the lack of reliable empirical data, most of the studies focussed on modelling aspects. It was shown that social groups can have a considerable effect, e.g. on evacuation times. In order to test the model predictions we have performed laboratory experiments of evacuations with different types and sizes of the social groups. The experiments have been performed with pupils of different ages. Parameters that have been considered are (1) group size, (2) strength of intra-group interactions, and (3) composition of the groups (young adults, children, and mixtures). For all the experiments high-quality trajectories for all participants have been obtained using the PeTrack software. This allows for a detailed analysis of the group effects. One surprising observation is a decrease of the evacuation time with increasing group size.
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Acknowledgements
We dedicate this contribution in grateful memory to our friend and colleague Matthias Craesmeyer. We thank the team from the Forschungszentrum Jülich and Wuppertal University and the students and teachers of Gymnasium Bayreuther Straße and Wilhelm-Dörpfeld-Gymnasium in Wuppertal for the help with the experiments. Financial support by the DFG under grant SCHA 636/9-1 is gratefully acknowledged.
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von Krüchten, C., Müller, F., Svachiy, A., Wohak, O., Schadschneider, A. (2016). Empirical Study of the Influence of Social Groups in Evacuation Scenarios. In: Knoop, V., Daamen, W. (eds) Traffic and Granular Flow '15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33482-0_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33482-0_9
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