Scaling behavior of crowd flow outside a hall

Crowd flow going outside a hall is investigated by using the lattice-gas model of pedestrian flow. Some different dynamical states are distinguished for the crowd flow. It is shown that a dynamical phase transition occurs from the choking flow to the decaying flow at a critical time t(c). In the choking-flow region, a scaling behavior is found as follows: the crowd flow rate J scales as J proportional to W0.88+/-0.02 and the transition time t(c) scales as t(c) proportional to W-1.16+/-0.01, where W is the size of door. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.