Wind Effect on Pedestrian Activities and Motion Patterns

Abstract

The analysis of pedestrian wind comfort was carried out using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) on a 3D model of the Istanbul Bilgi University Central Campus. The context of the analysis was conducted on the pedestrian activity maps within the campus between November 2021 and January 2022, including a time of strong south-westerly winds (Lodos) that hit Istanbul at the end of November/early December 2021. The activities of students and their movement patterns were observed through videos and by counting the pedestrians manually, creating a spatial map that represents pedestrian counts and their activities within the outdoor spaces. A 3D model of the campus was constructed, and CFD pedestrian wind comfort analysis was performed and compared to the pedestrian activity maps. Spatial relation analysis was performed to examine whether the pedestrian activities can be related to the Lawson wind comfort criteria map. The results show that there was generally some inconsistency between the empirically observed number of pedestrians and their activities and the wind comfort criteria map.