Research on mechanism and simulation for avoiding behavior of individual pedestrian

The research on the mechanism of avoiding behaviors and microscopic simulations in the scenario of individual pedestrian are carried out. Controlled experiments on avoidance of obstacle are conducted to analyze the microscopic characteristics of pedestrian behaviors and provide experimental evidence. Common features concerning movement parameters, such as velocity and spatial position, are summarized to construct the common scenario for avoidance for further quantitative analysis of avoiding behaviors. Walking power-consumption is introduced to describe the influences of distance and body-rotation on route choice. Further, walking comfortability and walking efficiency are proposed based on walking power-consumption to describe the long-term and short-term utilities of decision making respectively. Preference for comfortability and efficiency is discussed based on spatial distance to the target and inertia coefficient, which is introduced to describe the laziness of pedestrian. Then the process of decision making is modeled as a dynamic process of pedestrian balancing long-term and short-term benefits, based on which a microscopic simulation model is established to simulate the avoiding behaviors of pedestrian and reproduce the microscopic characteristics. The results show that, the phenomenon of delayed-avoidance exists in the avoidance of obstacle, which means that pedestrians make no instant reactions when encountering with an obstacle, but keep the current velocity and walk for some distance. Also, walking efficiency is found to be decreasing when the current velocity deviates from the target. Furthermore, moving behaviors and route choices of pedestrian are largely relevant to the level of inertia and walking preference. According to different levels of inertia, the moving microscopic characteristics and walking patterns of individual pedestrian can be divided into three types of moving strategies in avoidance. Specifically, pedestrian of lower inertia will focus more on walking efficiency, and are more active in reaction to the obstacle. Pedestrian in higher level of inertia tends to be short-sighted and lazier in route choice. Besides, the inertia of pedestrian is found to make pedestrian focus on short-term and immediate rather than long-term and global benefits in route choice.