Emerging research on vibration serviceability of footbridges due to pedestrian crowds

Despite a growing number of reported vibration serviceability problems worldwide of newly build footbridges due to pedestrians walking, there is still a lack of adequate codes of practice. There are three key issues that a new generation of the relevant design guidelines should urgently address: effect of human bodies on dynamic properties of a structure, inter-subject and intra-subject variability of pedestrian dynamic excitation and pedestrian “intelligent” interaction with the surrounding people and environment. This article provides a brief overview of the relevant state-of-the-art research that has a great potential to change this unsatisfactory state of affairs.