Effect of luggage-carrying on pedestrian flow through bottleneck: an experimental study

We experimentally investigated the flow of luggage-carrying pedestrians through a bottleneck in both normal and emergency situations. Based on trajectories, we analysed the temporal and spatial features of the flow and discussed pedestrian traffic efficiency. The main findings include: 1) When the ratio of luggage-carrying pedestrians increases from 0% to 100%, the steady-velocity decreases by 22% in the normal and 33% in an emergency, and the average flow decreases by 39% and 47%, respectively; 2) When no pedestrian carries luggage or when all pedestrians carry luggage, we observed a dual-peaks spatial distribution of pedestrians at the bottleneck, indicating that pedestrians prefer to exit from both sides of the bottleneck; 3) The power-law index of the complementary cumulative distribution function increases with the ratio of luggage-carrying pedestrians, and the specific bottleneck flow is lower than the previous studies, indicating that carrying luggage promotes congestion and reduces the passing efficiency.