Interaction between vehicle and pedestrians in a narrow channel

In this paper, the interaction between vehicle and pedestrians in the narrow channel is studied. Comparing with our previous work, here the vehicle is allowed to move with different maximum velocity. The pedestrians are stilled modelled by the lattice gas model and they are regarded as biased random walkers. The dependence of the average speed of the vehicle on its maximum velocity and the pedestrian density is investigated. The simulations show that for a given pedestrian number, there exists a critical maximum velocity v(max,c) above which the vehicle can move freely. Moreover, an interesting phenomenon, i.e., the alternating behavior of vehicle between free moving state and slow moving state is observed. The dependence of the average velocity of the vehicle on its position as well as its moving direction is also investigated. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.