Herding Effect in Coupled Pedestrian-Pedestrian Interacting Dynamics

A simple particle hopping model is proposed to investigate the interaction of two groups of pedestrians,namely straight walking pedestrians and cross-pedestrians.In the model,the straight walking pedestrians have greater priority walking on a main road,while other pedestrians arrive at the roadside and check to cross.Herding behavior,by which cross-pedestrians communicate with each other and self-organize to compete for common space with their straight walking counterparts,are newly introduced to reflect realistic crossing behavior in a crowed street.The results demonstrate that herding behavior brings adverse consequences to both types of pedestrians as a whole,although the pedestrians adopting prompt herding behavior can benefit.Furthermore,an increased number of crossing points to avoid the inefficiency of the coupled system is also investigated.