Spatial fluctuations of pedestrian velocities in bidirectional streams: Exploring the effects of self-organization

Individual pedestrian velocities vary over time and space depending on the crowd size, location of individuals within the crowd, and formation of self-organized lanes. We use empirical data to explore the spatial fluctuations of pedestrian velocities in bidirectional streams. We find that, unlike ordinary fluids, the velocity profile in bidirectional pedestrian streams does not necessarily follow a hyperbolic form. Rather, the shape of the velocity profile is highly dependent on the formation of self-organized lanes. We also show that the spatial fluctuations of pedestrian velocities along and transverse to the flow direction are widely distributed and can be modeled by a sum of Gaussian distributions. Results suggest that the effect of self-organization phenomenon is strong enough that for the same crowd size, the velocity distribution does not significantly change when pedestrians are highly mixed compared to when separate lanes are formed.