Cellular automaton modeling of pedestrian movement behavior on an escalator

As a convenient passenger transit facility between floors with different heights, escalators have been extensively used in shopping malls, metro stations, airport terminals, etc. Compared with other vertical transit facilities including stairs and elevators, escalators usually have large transit capacity. It is expected to reduce pedestrian traveling time and thus improve the quality of pedestrian's experiences especially in jamming conditions. However, it is noticed that pedestrians may present different movement patterns, e.g., queuing on each step of the escalator, walking on the left-side and meanwhile standing on the right-side of the escalator. These different patterns affect the actual escalator traffic volume and finally the passenger spatiotemporal distribution in different built environments. Thus, in the present study, a microscopic cellular automaton (CA) simulation model considering pedestrian movement behavior on escalators is built. Simulations are performed considering different pedestrian movement speeds, queuing modes, and segregation on escalators with different escalator speeds. The actual escalator capacities under different pedestrian movement patterns are investigated. It is found that walking on escalators will not always benefit escalator transit volume improvement, especially in jamming conditions. (paper)