Experimental Study on Single-File Movement with Different Stop Distances

Abstract

The single-file movement formed at exit, passageway, and stairway is a common and fundamental phenomenon in building evacuation when fire happened. In order to investigate single-file movement, the controlled experiments contained three parts: acceleration, steady state, and deceleration are effective research methods. In this paper, we conducted single-file movement experiments with two different commands in decelerating phase: (1) normal stop, (2) close stop, i.e., stop at the place as close as possible to the predecessor, in which participants move at different free moving speed. Through rescaling the speed, there is no influence for different free moving speed on speed–distance headway relationship. The linear fitting curve is executed to obtain a quantitative description of the speed–distance headway relation, and the slope in the close stop experiment is larger than that in the normal stop. It is found that there is a little difference in the decelerating phase for different participants and the average close stop distance is 0.34 m, which is a little bigger than average chest width 0.3 m. For the normal stop, the comfortable stop distance is dependent on individual proxemics. In the relation of speed–time, it was divided into two stages, which is fitted using linear regression. The value of negative acceleration in stage I is greater than stage II. Similar to the fitting result of speed–distance headway, participants in close stop experiments have bigger negative acceleration in stage I. However, in stage II, due to the uncertainty of close stop distance for different participants, the value of negative acceleration in close stop is smaller. Actually, in normal conditions, participants stopped with their comfortable stop distance when the predecessor stopped. However, in emergency or hurried conditions, the stop distance would be smaller. Therefore, it is useful to investigate the movement behavior in an emergency (such as fire and earthquake) and hurried conditions when the predecessor stopped suddenly.