Social aspects of collision avoidance: a detailed analysis of two-person groups and individual pedestrians

Pedestrian groups are commonly found in crowds but research on their social aspects is comparatively lacking. To fill that void in literature, we study the dynamics of collision avoidance between pedestrian groups (in particular dyads) and individual pedestrians in an ecological environment, focusing in particular on (i) how such avoidance depends on the group’s social relation (e.g. colleagues, couples, friends or families) and (ii) its intensity of social interaction (indicated by conversation, gaze exchange, gestures etc). By analyzing relative collision avoidance in the “center of mass” frame, we were able to quantify how much groups and individuals avoid each other with respect to the aforementioned properties of the group. A mathematical representation using a potential energy function is proposed to model avoidance and it is shown to provide a fair approximation to the empirical observations. We also studied the probability that the individuals disrupt the group by “passing through it” (termed as intrusion). We analyzed the dependence of the parameters of the avoidance model and of the probability of intrusion on groups’ social relation and intensity of interaction. We confirmed that the stronger social bonding or interaction intensity is, the more prominent collision avoidance turns out. We also confirmed that the probability of intrusion is a decreasing function of interaction intensity and strength of social bonding. Our results suggest that such variability should be accounted for in models and crowd management in general. Namely, public spaces with strongly bonded groups (e.g. a family-oriented amusement park) may require a different approach compared to public spaces with loosely bonded groups (e.g. a business-oriented trade fair).