Analytical investigation of the faster-is-slower effect with a simplified phenomenological model

• Published in: Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics, 2013-11, Vol.88 (5), p.052813-052813, Article 052813
• Main Authors: Suzuno, K, Tomoeda, A, Ueyama, D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1539-3755; 1550-2376
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.88.052813

We investigate the mechanism of the phenomenon called the "faster-is-slower"effect in pedestrian flow studies analytically with a simplified phenomenological model. It is well known that the flow rate is maximized at a certain strength of the driving force in simulations using the social force model when we consider the discharge of self-driven particles through a bottleneck. In this study, we propose a phenomenological and analytical model based on a mechanics-based modeling to reveal the mechanism of the phenomenon. We show that our reduced system, with only a few degrees of freedom, still has similar properties to the original many-particle system and that the effect comes from the competition between the driving force and the nonlinear friction from the model. Moreover, we predict the parameter dependences on the effect from our model qualitatively, and they are confirmed numerically by using the social force model.