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Impact of hostile vehicle mitigation measures (bollards) on pedestrian crowd movement: phase 1

Impact of hostile vehicle mitigation measures (bollards) on pedestrian crowd movement: phase 1

Galea, E. R. ORCID: 0000-0002-0001-6665, Gwynne, S., Cooney, D. ORCID: 0000-0002-2341-0315 and Sharp, G. G. (2016) Impact of hostile vehicle mitigation measures (bollards) on pedestrian crowd movement: phase 1. [Working Paper]

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Abstract

This work has been conducted by the Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) of the University of Greenwich (UoG) under contract to the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI). This document represents the final report of this work. The aim of this project was to design, conduct and analyse a series of pedestrian flow trials to explore the impact of Hostile Vehicle Mitigation Measures (i.e. a Bollard Array, BA) upon pedestrian flows of simulated evacuation conditions. This report describes the performance of these trials and the subsequent analysis of the data produced.

FSEG, in discussion with CPNI, designed a series of trials in order to examine the impact that the presence of a BA might have upon an established pedestrian flow. A number of trials were conducted in order to assess this impact. The trials were designed to capture the conditions produced as the population left a simulated station: at the point of exit (Exit flow trials) and when this population is incident upon the BA (BA flow trials). These trials were designed to control a number of key parameters in order to explore two specific questions:
• How does BA stand-off distance impact exit flow?
• How does the BA impact flow passing through the BA?
As these effects were expected to be dependent on population density, two initial population densities were examined, 3 p/m2 and 4 p/m2. These densities were selected as they reflected the recommended maximum engineering design population densities and so were deemed representative of the conditions that may be encountered during evacuation situations at peak periods.

The exit flow results were generated for a 2.4m wide exit, with initial crowd densities of 3 p/m2 and 4 p/m2 and BA stand-offs of 3m and 6m with six bollards used in the BA. Additional trials were conducted using a single bollard placed in the centre of the exit. For the BA flow trials, the width of the exit path was 4.5m and the BA consisted of four bollards. For the BA flow trials involving cross-walkers, the cross-walkers were arranged in two rows a distance of 3.76m beyond the BA. The cross-walkers attempted to maintain their initial line density of 1.11 p/m per row and flow rate of 60 ppm per row. This was not always possible due to the disruption caused by the flow of people across their path. On average they managed a flow rate of 44.6 ppm across all the trials. In each set of trials, the bollards were 0.225m wide, 1.0m high and were spaced 1.2m apart.

In total 50 trials were conducted over three days on two weekends (16, 17 and 23 March 2013), 32 Exit flow trials and 18 BA flow trials. The experiment for each unique trial set up (excluding the cross-walking trials) was repeated three times in order to ensure that the collected data was repeatable and representative of the trial conditions. The trials took place in the Queen Anne Courtyard of the University of Greenwich. Some 630 participants were recruited to take part in the trials, of which 458 actually participated. Each participant was compensated £45 for their day long involvement in the trials. The Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) was responsible for setting up the BA configuration required for each of the series of trials. On each trial day there were 12 FSEG staff members, 2 TRL staff members and 1 St.Johns first aider involved. The data was recorded using five video cameras. The findings from the trials reflect the complexity of the impact of the BA upon performance.

Item Type: Working Paper
Additional Information: The reports were commissioned by the Department for Transport and Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure. Research was completed by the Fire Safety Engineering Group of the University of Greenwich and submitted on 22 August 2013. Declassified and published in the public domain on 15 November 2016.
Uncontrolled Keywords: Pedestrian flow trials; Pedestrian flows of simulated evacuation conditions; Hostile vehicle mitigation measures
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: Faculty of Engineering & Science > Centre for Numerical Modelling & Process Analysis (CNMPA) > Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG)
Faculty of Engineering & Science > School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences (CMS)
Faculty of Engineering & Science
Last Modified: 04 Mar 2022 13:07
URI: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/17075

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