Influence of walking height on motion features of evacuees

Abstract

In order to quantify influence of walking height on motion features of evacueesꎬ VR technology was adopted to construct evacuation scenarios of different heights. Thenꎬ experiment data were collected with laser radarꎬ and fear of height was classified by using acrophobia questionnaire (AQ) and K ̄means clustering algorithm. Finallyꎬ influence of different levels of acrophobia and gender on evacuees' speedꎬ stride and step frequency were investigated at controlled height. The results show that evacuation speedꎬ stride and step frequency of pedestrians decrease along with the increase of heightꎬ which is more obvious as it is between 0 m and 50 m. When at the same heightꎬ those whose acrophobia is more severe will have lower speedꎬ smaller strideꎬ faster step frequency and are more sensitive to height changes. It is also found that female's walking speed and stride decrease more observably than those of males while the latter ' s walking speed and stride are larger than females at the same height.