Analyzing the Effects of a Column in front of a Bottleneck in a Transportation Infrastructure using Real-World Trajectories

In this paper, the effects of placing a column in front of a bottleneck in a real environment under everyday conditions are investigated regarding to person densities, pedestrian flows and personal distances. The study area is a transport infrastructure in Vienna with an attached shopping mall and the column was positioned at various locations in front of the entrance of the shopping mall. For the data analysis, the person trajectories of several scenarios were recorded using video-based sensors. In the scenarios with the column, the densities in front of the bottleneck increased but flows got a nuance smoother with less stop-and-go movements.