When diffusion faces drift: Consequences of exclusion processes for bi-directional pedestrian flows

Stochastic particle-based models are useful tools for describing the collective movement of large crowds of pedestrians in crowded confined environments. Using descriptions based on the simple exclusion process, two populations of particles, mimicking pedestrians walking in a built environment, enter a room from two opposite sides. One population is passive — being unaware of the local environment; particles belonging to this group perform a symmetric random walk. The other population has information on the local geometry in the sense that as soon as particles enter a visibility zone, a drift activates them. Their self-propulsion leads them towards the exit. This second type of species is referred here as active. The assumed crowdedness corresponds to a near-jammed scenario. The main question we ask in this paper is: Can we induce modifications of the dynamics of the active particles to improve the outgoing current of the passive particles? To address this question, we compute occupation number profiles and currents for both populations in selected parameter ranges. Besides observing the more classical faster-is-slower effect, new features appear as prominent like the non-monotonicity of currents, self-induced phase separation within the active population, as well as acceleration of passive particles for large-drift regimes of active particles.