An improved model for dynamic analysis of merging flow including luggage-laden pedestrians in Y-shaped corridors

Transportation hubs exhibit complex spatial configurations, generating multi-directional pedestrian flows in merging areas. Meanwhile, the heterogeneity of individual behavior further complicates pedestrian dynamics. Based on practical observations, this research establishes a modified social force model to investigate nonlinear dynamics of merging flow including luggage-laden pedestrians in Y-shaped corridors under different merging angles. Passing time and time evolution of the number of pedestrians confirms the consistency between the simulation model and an experiment. Evidently, when the total number of pedestrians increases, the flow rate shows no significant growth trend in the downstream. Meanwhile, it is observed that the flow rate in angle 45° is higher than others. Time headway further confirms this phenomenon, indicating that there is a correlation between the merging efficiency and the width of the main passage. Consistent with the previous experiment, the inverse relationship between passing performance and the proportions of luggage-laden pedestrians exists in the model. Furthermore, luggage-laden pedestrians maintain significantly larger interpersonal distance than pedestrians without luggage. The distribution of crowd pressure exhibits an increasing trend along the exit direction, and the distribution is similar to the shape of two adjacent droplets. In addition, the result reveals that the total number of pedestrians and the mixture ratios of luggage-laden pedestrians are positively correlated with crowd pressure. It is hoped that these findings will be helpful for mitigating congestion and improving pedestrian safety in merging infrastructure.