Where luggage-related facilities should be placed along passageways in traffic hubs: Right, left, or in the middle?

The interactions among luggage carriers and free pedestrians would bring disorders and conflicts in traffic hubs. In this work, we experimentally study the effect of luggage-related facility layouts on conflict reduction among pedestrians by changing three variables: the movement conditions (walking and running), the passageway width and position for luggage-carriers. The main findings are as follows. (i) By analyzing egress time and flow rate, it is found that the movement efficiency in scenarios where the luggage passageway is in the right (middle) is 16.2% (13.6%) higher than that in scenarios where the luggage passageway is in the left. (ii) The offset distances of scenarios where the luggage passageway is in the right are always lower than that in others regardless of movement conditions (walking and running) and the luggage passageway width (1 m and 1.8 m). (iii) In the same scenario, non-luggage pedestrians overtake others more frequently than luggage carriers with a permutation test. The findings suggest that the luggage-related facilities placed in the middle or right of a passageway along pedestrian movement direction enhance traffic efficiency. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.