The intensity of human flows and traffic streams (a review)

Introduction. The article offers a detailed description of the notions of intensity of human flows and traffic streams. The values of their intensity are determined by the capacity of a road that is one meter wide. The article also offers a description of the flow/stream density and speed that determine their intensity. The co-authors have demonstrated that the flow/stream density is a technical parameter that characterizes the mobility of humans in a flow. The influence of people on the human flow speed is identified with the help of coefficients of motion conditions. To distinguish between the areas of application of these two notions in the process of developing a route optimization methodology, the co-authors addressed the properties of human flows and the road section capacity that depend on the flow width and the road section width. The theory of human flows employs the statistical analysis of human flows to identify the relationship between the parameters of a human flow, based on regularities of psychophysics, and its mathematical anticipations are described by an elementary stochastic function, which means that a human flow is a stochastic process. Subject of research. The intensity of interdependent human flows and traffic streams. Goals. The purpose of the article is to identify and demonstrate explanations of differences between the intensity of human flows and traffic streams. Materials and methods. Collecting and analyzing the research literature focused on human flows and traffic streams. Results. The co-authors have shown that a traffic stream is an independent system that is determined by uncer- tainty, finitude, and dependence of distance on time. The value, that ties all the parameters, that characterize the process of human motion, is the road capacity, while the motion intensity is defined as the product of density times speed. Conclusions. The identified dependence between the human flow parameters serves as the basis for stan- dardizing different escape routes and exists from buildings performing different functions. The currently used methodology applies the regularities thus identified to simulate human evacuation processes in the course of design and operation of buildings and structures in order to assess the value of the fire risk, while the results of multiannual research projects are contributed to statistical databases used to develop construction rules and regulations.