Revolving doors offer the ideal solution for convenience and security as well as energy efficiency. Opening a regular door allows a large amount of air to escape, but with the always open-always closed principle of revolving doors, drafts, dust, and noise coming into the building are greatly reduced. Less energy required to maintain the climate means a reduction in the carbon footprint of the building.
However, the original and more important purpose of the revolving door, as a pedestrian flow management solution remains. This is why it’s so important to consider how much throughput revolving doors can provide when modeling them. For example, if such a doorway is supposed to allow for 100 people per minute, it’s better to apply the right modeling approach to a pedestrian model so that there is no congestion.
Modeling a revolving door
Let’s say you’re modeling a revolving door with a throughput of 100 people per minute. It’s important to understand that both in and out flows are taken into account, which means there should be a maximum of 50 people entering and 50 people exiting per minute. Since there’s a two-way flow, it’s better to make sure they’re separated, as it would be in a real revolving door.
It’s especially convenient to use AnyLogic Pathway markup element to model pedestrian flows as you can direct pedestrians where you need them to go. Furthermore, it makes sense to use an additional wall to separate these pathways and pedestrian flows. It will prevent them from colliding and creating further gridlock.
Since revolving doors rotate slower than people usually move, you need to find a way to slow down the pedestrians in the whole revolving door area. This area is indicated by the dashed blue rectangle in the screenshot below. A Rectangular Node with speed restriction enabled should be handy here.
To be sure the created passage provides the required throughput, it’s important to measure it and, if necessary, rearrange the elements. The Pedestrian Flow Statistics component and its traffic() function, which returns the throughput you need, can be used to measure the pedestrian flow.
Ultimately, you can see how the created doorway provides the necessary throughput of 100 people per minute.
Below you will find the revolving door model. Get the source files from AnyLogic Cloud and play with it yourself.
Revolving Door Model in Action
Whether you’re involved in designing a brand-new shopping center, a modern skyscraper or even an international airport, revolving doors can provide the literal entrance to a new world. With the set of tools provided in the AnyLogic Pedestrian Library, you can model these doors with incoming and outgoing pedestrian flows. As a result, you have a solution that can adapt as lifestyles change.
If you want to read more about how to make getting around easier, check out some of these other blogs available here: Pedestrian Modeling.
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