Proxemics and Permeability of the Pedestrian Group

Abstract

People tend to walk in groups, and interactions with those groups have a significant impact on crowd behavior and pedestrian traffic dynamics. Social norms can be seen as unwritten rules regulating people interactions in social settings. This article studies people interactions with groups and the emergence of group proxemics. Group zones, zone occupancy counts and people clearance from the group are studied using naturalistic data. Analysis indicate potential presence of three different zones in addition to the public zone. People tend to remain in the public zone and only progressively get closer to groups, and those closer approaches happen in a low frequency and for brief periods of time.