Herding effect in coupled pedestrian-pedestrian interacting dynamics

A simple particle hopping model is proposed to investigate the interaction of two groups of pedestrians, namely straight walking pedestrians and cross-pedestrians. In the model, the straight walking pedestrians have greater priority walking on a main road, while other pedestrians arrive at the roadside and check to cross. Herding behavior, by which cross-pedestrians communicate with each other and self-organize to compete for common space with their straight walking counterparts, are newly introduced to reflect realistic crossing behavior in a crowed street. The results demonstrate that herding behavior brings adverse consequences to both types of pedestrians as a whole, although the pedestrians adopting prompt herding behavior can benefit. Furthermore, an increased number of crossing points to avoid the inefficiency of the coupled system is also investigated.