PEDESTRIAN DYNAMICS IN SINGLE-FILE MOVEMENT UNDER BACKGROUND MUSIC WITH DIFFERENT TEMPOS

Large crowds are challenging the comfort and safety level of big cities, while music may be a potential method to improve pedestrian flow. This paper focuses on the influence of different tempos and types of background music on pedestrian dynamics. Three tempos (90beats/min (BPM), 120BPM and 150BPM) and two types (pure music and metronome stimuli) of music are considered. It is found that more frequent stop-and-go behaviors emerge with rhythms. Compared with that under a low tempo (90BPM) of rhythm condition, stopping is more frequent with a high tempo one (120BPM or 150BPM). The number of stopping pedestrians per unit time increases 68.57%, 376.00%, 298.29%, 224.00%, 438.29% and 393.71% with 90 BPM, 120BPM and 150BPM music, 90BPM, 120BPM and 150BPM metronome, compared with that without any rhythm, respectively. The velocity and flow are lower, and higher local densities appear with background music. The step frequency at high density with rhythms (1.16 +/- 0.11, 1.16 +/- 0.12 and 1.15 +/- 0.10Hz for 90BPM, 120BPM and 150BPM music; 1.15 +/- 0.13, 1.11 +/- 0.09 and 1.16 +/- 0.11Hz for 90BPM, 120BPM and 150BPM metronome) is lower than that without any rhythm (1.40 +/- 0.14Hz). Pedestrians need more time to avoid collisions and to step under background music conditions, because they are influenced by the music and not fully focusing on walking. As a result, step frequency decreases and stopping behavior is more frequent. This in turn leads to the decrease of the velocity and flow and the emergence of higher local densities. Our study will be helpful for understanding the effect of background music on pedestrian dynamics