Comparison of the stepping behavior for elderly group with or without horizontal interaction

Abstract

Nowadays, the increasing aging population is a worldwide challenge. It is of vital importance to study the dynamic behavior of the elderly group. Research on the stepping behavior of the elderly is limited and the effect of horizontal interactions from neighbors has not been observed. The impacts of the horizontal interactions on stepping behaviors are studied for the first time. Factors of density and speed are considered. The negative influence of horizontal interaction on the step length becomes more obvious under higher density. The speed of body-sway motion v_y is determined by the pedestrian group composition and the forward speed v_x but has no relation to neighbors. Results in this paper can help us profoundly understand the movement characteristics of the elderly. In addition, the lateral interaction should be considered in the theoretical model simulating stepping behaviors of pedestrians for it has significant influences on step size and speed.

KEYWORDS:

• Horizontal interaction
• elderly group
• stepping behavior

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the foundation support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.72174189, 71704168, U1933105, 72001095), from Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant No.1808085MG217) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No.WK2320000043, WK2320000050).