Pedestrian Arching Mechanism at Bottleneck in Subway Transit Hub

Under the massive pedestrian flow, pedestrians arching phenomenon forms easily at bottleneck in subway hubs, which might stampede and crush. To explore pedestrian arching mechanism at bottleneck in subway transit hub, this paper conducts a series of simulation experiment. Firstly, movement preference characteristic in subway transit hubs was introduced into the social force model which considers multiple force. Then, after setting basic experiment scenario, unidirectional flow at different bottlenecks were simulated. Finally, the mechanism of pedestrian arching phenomenon at bottleneck was quantitative analyzed with the help of experimental data. Some main conclusions are summarized. Pedestrian arching phenomenon could be divided into four stages: Free, arching formation, arching stabilization and arching dissipation. In addition, the relationship between bottleneck scenario and passing time could be built to a function model. With the different of bottleneck width ratio, passing time presents positive correlation. The research results could give some helps for understanding the dynamic evolution process of unidirectional flow at bottleneck, improving the pedestrian efficiency at bottleneck and optimizing pedestrian facilities in subway transit hub.