Experimental Vibration Analysis for Civil Engineering Structures

219

Statistical characterisation of parameters defining human walking

as observed on an indoor passerelle
S. ivanovi, V. Raci, I. El-Bahnasy, A. Pavi
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT: Increased slenderness of footbridge structures in the last few decades has led to an
increasing number of vibration serviceability problems under human induced dynamic load,
such as walking. These problems are typically related to increased discomfort of footbridge users due to perceptible vibrations during footbridge crossing. The current codes of practice dealing with the vibration serviceability of footbridges often fail to assess reliably the vibration level
induced by humans. This is because they model the load induced by pedestrians by considering
only an average walker. However, because of natural diversity in human population, so called
inter-subject variability, it is necessary to model the walking force in a probabilistic way taking
into account this type of variability. To do this, a large database of parameters (such as walking
frequency, step length and weight) describing walking force induced by different individuals is
required. Currently, only limited amount of data to populate this database is available. To generate more data of this kind, pedestrian traffic on an indoor passerelle inside a University campus in Sheffield was monitored using video cameras for 6.5 hours. The data that characterise
human walking (such as walking frequency, step length and arrival time) were collected and
analysed statistically. Based on this, the probability density functions for the parameters analysed were constructed. The results of this study could be used when defining a badly needed
probabilistic force models for vibration serviceability assessment of indoor passerelles of this
kind.
1 INTRODUCTION
Vibration serviceability assessment of footbridge structures under human induced loading during walking requires precise quantification of the walking force and of the dynamic properties
of the footbridge. It is well known that the walking force is composed of components in three
directions: vertical, horizonatal longitudinal and horizontal lateral (Andriacchi et al., 1977). The
vertical component is greater than the other two which was the reason to introduce mathematical
modelling of this component only into the first footbridge design code BS5400 (BSI, 1978)
dealing with vibration serviceability assessment of pedestrian bridges. The model introduced assumes that an average single pedestrian walking in the way to excite the footbridge resonance is
the relevant loading case scenario for the vibration serviceability check. The force is modelled
as a harmonic function, therefore deterministically. This model might both overestimate and underestimate the actual vibration response. However, it is still, with minor modifications, in use
in many design guidelines worldwide (ivanovi et al., 2005).
Contrary to the deterministic approach to the modelling of the walking force in civil engineering, biomechanical studies of normal and pathological gait have recognised that the human
induced walking force is a stochastic phenomenon (Hirokawa, 1989), emphasizing the importance of its statistical description. This fact has been either not known or considered as nonrelevant for a long time by authorities developing footbridge design guidelines. This despite the
fact that published research, conducted even by fellow civil engineers, have clearly indicated

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that the walking force can significantly differ between different individuals in terms of forcing
frequency, its amplitude and duration (Matsumoto et al., 1978; Rainer et al., 1988; Kerr, 1998).
In addition to this inter-subject variability, it has been found that there is a difference in the
walking force induced with each step of a single individual. This is so called intra-subject variability (Brownjohn et al., 2004; Sahnaci & Kasperski, 2005). Both types of variability can be
taken into account by modelling the force as a probabilistic process.
To develop a probabilistic force model, statistically reliable distributions of gait parameters
describing the force (such as the walking frequency, walking speed and force magnitude) should
be collected and their mutual dependence, if any, established. In this way a database of the relevant parameters can be formed. Then these data should be presented in the form appropriate for
further usage, for example in the form of their probability density functions. For completeness
of the database of this kind, it is preferable to have the parameters collected for footbridges in
different areas and countries (Al-Obaidi et al., 2003). Also, it is known that people often behave
differently in laboratory and field conditions (Finley and Cody, 1970) which suggests that the
data collection is more reliable if conducted on real as-built footbridges.
This paper describes collection and analysis of the data related to the inter-subject variability
in the walking force. The data were collected during several hours of monitoring of pedestrian
traffic over a passerelle inside the University of Sheffield campus. The pedestrian traffic was recorded by two video cameras. This enabled calculation of the walking frequency, step length
and pedestrians speed. Then, their probability density functions and degree of correlation were
found. Finally, pedestrian arrival time was analysed and its probability density function established.
2 MONITORING TESTS
The monitoring of the pedestrian traffic took place on an indoor passerelle connecting two
buildings inside the University campus in Sheffield: the Main Library (Figure 1a: left) and the
Arts Tower (Figure 1a: right). The total footbridge span is 15.64 m. The 3 m wide concrete deck
is straight and lies in the horizontal plane. It is frequently passed by students and staff during the
breaks between classes. Outside these periods the bridge is quite empty. An inside look at the
bridge from the Library side is shown in Figure 1b.

(a)
(b)
Figure 1. (a) The passerelle at the University of Sheffield (left: Main Library; right: Arts Tower). (b) Inside view from the Main Library side.

Pedestrian traffic across the passerelle was monitored for 6.5 hours during five monitoring
sessions on five different days. The first session lasted 0.5 hours, and all others 1.5 hours. The
traffic was recorded by two video cameras (with synchronised clocks), one placed at each end of
the bridge. During the monitoring, a total number of 939 pedestrians crossed the bridge as follows: 54 people in Test 1, 190 in Test 2, 181 in Test 3, 244 in Test 4 and 270 in Test 5. On average, only 2.4 pedestrians crossed the bridge per minute. For each pedestrian the following data
were collected: the gender, the entry time, the exit time and the number of steps needed to cross
the bridge. Based on these data, the walking frequency, walking speed, step length and arrival
time could be calculated. Among all pedestrians, 370 were men and 569 were women.

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3 DATA ANALYSIS
The data collected were analysed to construct probability density functions for the gait parameters (such as step frequency, step length and walking speed) and arrival time. The correlation
between the parameters analysed was calculated whenever possible.
3.1 Step frequency, step length and walking speed
The step frequency for every person crossing the passerelle was found by dividing the number
of steps made during the crossing by the crossing time. It was found that the step frequency follows the normal distribution having a mean value equal to 1.94 Hz and a standard deviation of
0.187 Hz (Figure 2a). Therefore, the mean pacing frequency on this indoor pedestrian bridge
was higher than 1.8 Hz reported by Pachi and Ji (2005) for 400 pedestrians walking across two
outdoor footbridges in Manchester, UK, and 1.87 Hz recorded for about 2000 pedestrians crossing an as-built footbridge in Montenegro (ivanovi, 2006). At the same time, the step frequency of pedestrians crossing the bridge in Sheffield was slightly lower than the mean frequency of 2.0 Hz reported by Matsumoto et al. (1978) for pedestrians in Japan. Additionally, it
was found that females walked with slightly higher frequency than males. The mean value and
standard deviation of these two distributions were: 1.89 Hz and 0.178 Hz for men, respectively,
and 1.98 Hz and 0.186 Hz for women, respectively.
6

2.5

1.5
Normal
distribution

1.0
0.5
0.0

Probability density [1/m]

Probability density [1/Hz]

Experimental data
2.0

Experimental
data
Normal
distribution

4
3
2
1
0

1.2 1.4

1.6
1.8
2.0
2.2
Step frequency [Hz]

2.4

2.6

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

(a)
(b)
Step length [m]
Figure 2. Probability density function for (a) step frequency and (b) step length.

0.9

1.0

The average step length for each pedestrian was found by dividing the footbridge length by
the number of steps made during the crossing. Similarly to the step frequency, the step length
approximately follows the normal distribution with mean value of 0.75 m and standard deviation of 0.078 m (Figure 2b). For male pedestrians these parameters were 0.79 m and 0.077 m,
respectively, while for female pedestrians they were 0.73 m and 0.068 m, respectively. This indicates that males, on average, have longer steps than female participants.
The normal probability plots (Montgomery and Runger, 1999) that indicate quality of the
step frequency and step length approximation by normal distributions are shown in Figure 3. It
can be seen that, since the data are concentrated along a straight line, the assumption of data being normally distribution is reasonable.
It was interesting to investigate the degree of correlation between the step length and step frequency. The correlation coefficient XY can be calculated as follows (Montgomery and Runger,
1999):
E [ XY ] X Y
(1)
XY =

XY

where X and Y are random variables, in this case the step length and the step frequency. E [ XY ]
represents the mean (or expected) value of the product of the two random variables, while
X , X , Y and Y are the mean value and standard deviation of variable X and the mean value
and standard deviation of variable Y, respectively.

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99.9
99.7
99
98
95
90

Cumulative probability [%]

Cumulative probability [%]

It was found that the correlation coefficient between the step length and the step frequency
was 0.21. This indicates a weak correlation between the two variables (Figure 4a). This further
suggests that the two parameters could be considered as almost, at least linearly, independent
(Mari & Kotz, 2004). Unfortunately, due to short length of the bridge and (crossing time and
number of steps) estimation errors, the resolution of the data was quite coarse. Namely, many
test subjects spending the same amount of time (estimated in seconds) on the bridge made the
same number of steps while crossing the structure, and therefore had the same walking frequency, step length and walking speed. For this reason many points in Figure 4 are actually
overlapped and therefore present more than one data point. Perhaps the best way to enhance the
reliability of the statistical analysis of this kind would be to provide a finer resolution of the data
to be collected. This could be achieved by monitoring the pedestrian traffic on a longer bridge
since this would increase the degree of variability in the number of steps and the crossing time
between different people.

75
50
25
10
5
2
1
0.3
0.1

(a)

1.4

1.6

1.8
2.0
2.2
Step frequency [Hz]

2.4

99.9
99.7
99
98
95
90
75
50
25
10
5
2
1
0.3
0.1

2.6

0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95

1.0

2.6
Speed=0.93fp-0.33
2.4

0.9

2.2
2.0
Speed [m/s]

Step length [m]

(b)
Step length [m]
Figure 3. The normal probability plot for (a) the step frequency and (b) the step length.

0.8
0.7

1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2

0.6

1.0

0.5

0.8
0.6

1.2

1.6

2.0

2.4

2.8

1.2

1.6

2.0

2.4

2.8

(a)
(b)
Step frequency [Hz]
Step frequency [Hz]
Figure 4. The correlation between (a) the step length and pacing frequency and (b) the walking speed and
the pacing frequency.

Based on data presented in Figure 4a, it seems reasonable to assume that the step length follows the normal distribution with the same mean value (i.e. 0.75 m) and standard deviation (i.e.
0.078 m) regardless of the step frequency. This is particularly useful assumption when developing the probabilistic model in which the walking frequency and step length could be treated as
two independent random variables, both following the normal distribution (ivanovi, 2006).
Finally, for every pedestrian the walking speed was calculated as the product between walking frequency and step length (or, alternatively, as the ratio between the passerelle length and
the crossing time). The dependence of the walking speed on walking frequency is shown in Figure 4b. The correlation coefficient between these two variables, being 0.76, is much stronger
than between the step length and step frequency. This independently confirms the known fact
that the walking speed generally increases with increasing the step frequency (ivanovi et al.,

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Experimental Vibration Analysis for Civil Engineering Structures

2005). The dependence between the two variables can be described by the linear fit shown in
Figure 4b.
The histogram of the walking speed is shown in Figure 5. The mean value in the sample was
1.47 m/s while the standard deviation was 0.228 m/s. Men are found to be faster than women,
with mean value 1.51 m/s and standard deviation of 0.229 m/s versus 1.45 m/s and 0.224 m/s,
respectively.
252

Number of occurrences

216
180
144
108
72
36
0
0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4
1.6
Speed [m/s]

1.8

2.0

2.2

Figure 5. Histogram for walking speed.

3.2 Arrival time

Test 5, lasting 90 minutes, was chosen for analysis of pedestrian arrival time since the largest
number of people crossed the bridge during this test: 270 in total (128 from the Main Library
side and 142 from the Arts Tower side). The total number of people present on the bridge in
each second of monitoring is shown in Figure 6a. This figure reveals that very often the bridge
was empty. To make it clearer, Figure 6b shows the proportion of time (on the vertical axis)
during which a total number of people, shown on the horizontal axis, is present on the bridge.
Therefore, during as much as 63% of total monitoring time in Test 5, there were no pedestrians
crossing the bridge.
Since this bridge is unoccupied most of the time, it was interesting to see if the arrival time
distribution on this bridge still follows the Poisson distribution, as often suggested in literature
(Matsumoto et al., 1978). The comparison between the collected data and the Poisson distribution is shown in Figure 7 separately for arrivals from the two sides of the bridge. It seems that
the approximation by Poisson distribution is visually accurate enough for modelling pedestrian
arrival on this bridge, at least for pedestrians arriving from the Main Library side (Figure 7a).
However, the data collected do not satisfy the theoretical requirement (Montgomery and
Runger, 1999) that mean value and variance (i.e. square of the standard deviation) should be
equal for a random variable following the Poisson distribution. These two values are equal to
2.8 and 3.7, respectively for data in Figure 7a, while for data in Figure 7b these are 3.2 and 5.8,
respectively.

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70
60

Proportion of time [%]

Number of people on the bridge

3
2
1

50
40
30
20
10

0
0

20

40
60
Time [min]

80

100

Number of people on the bridge

(a)
(b)
Figure 6. Test 5: (a) Total number of people present on the bridge in each second of monitoring. (b) Proportion of time in the testing when total number of people on the bridge in equal to the number shown on
the horizontal axis.

0.20

Experimental data
Poisson distribution

0.15
0.10
0.05
0

0.25

mean=2.8 people per 2min

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Number of people per 2 minutes

Probability density function

Probability density function

0.25

mean=3.2 people per 2min

0.20

Experimental data
Poisson distribution

0.15
0.10
0.05
0

0 1

9 10 11 12

(a)
(b)
Number of people per 2 minutes
Figure 7. Comparison of theoretical Poisson distribution and the experimental distribution of pedestrian
arrival on the bridge per two minutes from (a) Main Library side and (b) Arts Tower side.

4 CONCLUSIONS
The aim of the exercise described in this paper was to statistically characterise parameters that
describe pedestrian traffic, such as walking frequency, step length, walking speed and arrival
time. A total of 939 people crossed the bridge during the 6.5 hours of monitoring. It was found
that the walking frequency and step length could be modelled by the normal distribution. It was
interesting to note that the correlation between the step length and step frequency was weak.
This allows approximate modelling of these two parameters as mutually independent, which is
quite convenient for probabilistic modelling of the walking force. Additionally, it was found
that walking speed generally increased with increasing walking frequency. Finally, it was estimated that pedestrian arrival time could be modelled via Poisson distribution even in the case of
this infrequently crossed bridge. At the end it was suggested to choose some longer bridges for
data collection of this type in the future to secure better data quality, i.e. to reduce relative error
made when estimating number of steps and crossing time, based on which all other parameters
were derived.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank to the Facilities Management Directorate at the University of
Sheffield for their permission to monitor the pedestrian traffic on the passerelle investigated. We
would also like to thank all staff and students of the University of Sheffield for their help and
understanding during the monitoring.

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