The “faster-is-slower” (FIS) effect was first predicted by computer simulations of the egress of pedestrians through a narrow exit [D. Helbing, I. J. Farkas, and T. Vicsek, Nature (London) 407, 487 (2000)]. FIS refers to the finding that, under certain conditions, an excess of the individuals' vigor in the attempt to exit causes a decrease in the flow rate. In general, this effect is identified by the appearance of a minimum when plotting the total evacuation time of a crowd as a function of the pedestrian desired velocity. Here, we experimentally show that the FIS effect indeed occurs in three different systems of discrete particles flowing through a constriction: (a) humans evacuating a room, (b) a herd of sheep entering a barn, and (c) grains flowing out a 2D hopper over a vibrated incline. This finding suggests that FIS is a universal phenomenon for active matter passing through a narrowing.

We present an experimental study of a flock passing through a narrow door. Video monitoring of daily routines in a farm has enabled us to collect a sizable amount of data. By measuring the time lapse between the passage of consecutive animals, some features of the flow regime can be assessed. A quantitative definition of clogging is demonstrated based on the passage time statistics. These display broad tails, which can be fitted by power laws with a relatively large exponent. On the other hand, the distribution of burst sizes robustly evidences exponential behavior. Finally, borrowing concepts from granular physics and statistical mechanics, we evaluate the effect of increasing the door size and the performance of an obstacle placed in front of it. The success of these techniques opens new possibilities regarding their eventual extension to the management of human crowds.

: We report a thorough analysis of the intermittent flow of pedestrians through a narrow door. The observations include five different sets of evacuation drills with which we have investigated the effect of door size and competitiveness on the flow dynamics. Although the outcomes are in general compatible with the existence of the faster-is-slower effect, the temporal evolution of the instantaneous flow rate provides evidence of new features. These stress the crucial role of the number of people performing the tests, which has an influence on the obtained results. Once the transients at the beginning and end of the evacuation are removed, we have found that the time lapses between the passage of two consecutive pedestrians display heavy-tailed distributions in all the scenarios studied. Meanwhile, the distribution of burst sizes decays exponentially; this can be linked to a constant probability of finding a long-lasting clog during the evacuation process. Based on these results, a discussion is presented on the caution that should be exercised when measuring or describing the intermittent flow of pedestrians through narrow doors.

The Faster-Is-Slower effect (Helbing et al (2000)) is an important instance of self-organized phenomenon in pedestrian dynamics. Despite this, an experimental demonstration is still lacking. We present controlled tests where a group of students are asked to exit a room through a door. Instead of just measuring the evacuation times, we have analyzed the probability distribution of the time lapses between consecutive individuals. We show how it displays a power-law tail. This method displays clearly the Faster Is Slower effect, and also allows to assess the impact of several tactics that can be put in place to alleviate the problem