Experimental study on the impact of a stationary pedestrian obstacle at the exit on evacuation

Academic studies have shown that obstacles at the exit can improve evacuation efficiency, managers are skeptical of this strategy due to the effort and complexity required to implement it. Is there a simple and fast way to set up obstacles to facilitate evacuation? This article provides insights into the impact of a stationary pedestrian obstacle in front of the exit on evacuation efficiency and safety from experiments. Results show that the presence of the obstacle pedestrian slightly reduced evacuation efficiency based on evacuation time and time headway. However, the impact was not significant. On the other hand, from the density and velocity profiles, it was observed that the obstacle pedestrian significantly reduced the congestion level around the exit, making the evacuation process safer. The presence of the obstacle pedestrian regulated the number of pedestrians arriving at the exit at the same time, and the high density near the exit was related to the exit capacity and the distance between the obstacle and the exit. The distribution of the three closest pedestrians to the obstacle showed that pedestrians maintained a certain distance from the obstacle pedestrian during the evacuation process, ensuring the safety of the obstacle pedestrian. We suggest that setting up an obstacle pedestrian reasonably can be a simple and effective strategy to improve evacuation safety.