Cellular Automaton Approach to Pedestrian Dynamics - Applications

The simulation of pedestrian dynamics is a consolidated area of application for cellular automata based models: successful case studies can be found in the literature and off-the-shelf simulators are commonly employed by end-users, decision makers and consultancy companies. These models, however, generally consider individuals, their interactions with the environment and among themselves, but they generally neglect (or treat in a simplistic way) aspects like (i) the impact of cultural heterogeneity among individuals and (ii) the effects of the presence of groups and particular relationships among pedestrians. This work describes an innovative cellular automata based model encapsulating in the pedestrian's behavioural model effects representing both proxemics and a simplified account of influences related to the presence of groups in the crowd. The model is tested in a simple scenario to evaluate the implications of some modeling choices and the presence of groups in the simulated scenario. Results are discussed and compared to experimental observations and to data available in the literature.

The simulation of pedestrian flow is an important issue in many modern traffic systems and en-vironments. The planning and control of pedestrian flow is crucial for large buildings, shopping malls, airports, railway stations, cruise ships and ferries, manifestation places, sport stadiums etc., in order that optimal traffic throughput for daily usage can already be guaranteed at the time of construction. Even evacuation scenarios can be considered in this context. Common simulation approaches are either discrete or continuous. While continuous models, which rely on mathematical models originally developed for fluids and gases, are better suited for the modelling of somehow global phenomena, individual aspects are given more consideration in the discrete models. Many discrete models for pedestrian flow are based on cellular automata, however, traditional cellular automaton models work with a fixed cell size. Since at any given time, the states of the cells are always well-defined by t...

2013

This paper studies pedestrian interaction where pedestrians permeate thought crowds in areas such as train stations and shopping centres. Pedestrian simulation model is created by use of Cellular Automata (CA) and various analyses are carried out by means of pedestrian jam. This study further attempts to provide a solution to crowd management. The results show that congestion can be eased by employing intervals between pedestrians. In order to obtain the best possible interval values, a utility function is introduced. The calculated interval with maximum utility provides the optimal solution to ease pedestrian congestion and jam. Furthermore, taking pedestrian interval as a control variable, this Model is applied to train arrival at terminal stations. The result of the simulation herein suggests a solution by implementing a delayed opening of train doors.

2015

An existing dynamic cellular automaton (CA) model is modified for simulating the hallway area evacuation experiment. In this proposed model, some basic parameters that plays and important role in evacuation process such as human psychology and pedestrian density around exits are considered. From the simulation and experimental results obtained, it shows that the modification provides a reasonable improvement as pedestrian also tends to select exit route according to occupant density around the exits area besides considering the spatial distance to exits. The studies on pedestrian density effects on speed during the evacuation process are performed. Comparison for both the experiment and simulation results verifies that the proposed model is able to effectively reproduce the experiment. The proposed CA model improvement is valuable for more extensive application study and aid the architectural design to increase public safety. Hence, we conclude our paper by presenting some of the ap...

Behavior is related to the psychological and social level. However, it can also be taken into account implicitly (cf. fig. 1.1). Therefore, a 'physical' model is able to cover 1.3 Evacuation Assessment and how to Improve When considering evacuation processes, the movement of a crowd becomes simpler and is therefore easier to model. This is mainly due to the fact, that the destinations and goals of the individuals are determined. Furthermore, the egress routes are known. With respect to models for evacuation processes, two main aims can be identified: simulation and optimization. There is an obvious difference between both: Optimization techniques provide a well-defined quantity, e.g. the value of a function, that can be minimized. Thus, one obtains (within the restrictions of the boundary conditions) an optimal solution. This is not the case for a simulation: Here, the situation is modeled and a prediction about the outcome under certain initial conditions is made. What will be presented here is simulation. It might be used-by using some additional measure-for optimization. Chapter 2 Modeling Pedestrian and Crowd Dynamics-Methodology This chapter contains basic remarks on how to model pedestrian movement. It therefore deals with the methodology rather than a specific model in detail. The problem setting, as introduced in the previous chapter, is the investigation, description, and prediction of crowd motion and the aspects of evacuation processes related to it. To this end a theory (a set of assumptions and statements) is developed. Different model classes that comply with the theory will be introduced and briefly described. This is the first step providing the basis for empirical studies, model development, and finally the implementation in a simulation.

Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 2018

This paper proposes a discrete field cellular automaton (CA) model that integrates pedestrian heterogeneity, anisotropy, and time-dependent characteristics. The pedestrian movement direction, moving/staying, and steering are governed by the transfer equations. Compared with existing studies on fine-discretized CA models, the proposed model is advantageous in terms of flexibility, higher spatial accuracy, wider speed range, relatively low computational cost, and elaborated conflict resolution with synchronous update scheme. Three different application scenarios are created by adjusting the definite conditions of the model: (1) The first one is a unidirectional pedestrian movement in a channel, where a complete jam in the high-density region is observed from the proposed model, which is missing from existing floor field CA models. (2) The second one is evacuation from a room, where the evacuation time is independent of the discretization factor, which is different from previous work. (3) The third one is an ascending evacuation through a 21-storey stair system, where pedestrians move with constant speed or with fatigue. The evacuation time in the latter case is nearly twice of that in the former.

2008 Second Asia International Conference on Modelling & Simulation (AMS), 2008

This paper presents a basic multi-layer model of human movement process. A behavior model is used to simulate actions of individual pedestrians while a cellular automata model is used to simulate their small scale movements. A modular platform, which implements the proposed model, is also presented. The platform is being used to simulate different sections of the Muslim holy mosque in Makkah. Preliminary results of the simulation of circular pedestrian movements in a section of the mosque along with the algorithm used are reported.

2016

Large pedestrian dynamics scenarios are difficult to simulate by models with high spatial resolution in reasonable time, due to high computational costs. Possible solutions are hybrid approaches, which combine models of different spatial scales. On the macroscopic scale, network flow models are used to model pedestrian dynamics. These models reduce the scenario to a simple network of nodes and edges. They simulate quite quickly, but suffer from low spatial resolution. Mesoscopic and microscopic models simulate pedestrians as discrete and singular individuals. On the mesoscopic scale, the movement space of pedestrians is reduced to a cellular grid, while pedestrians on the microscopic scale move on a continuous space. These models have higher spatial resolution for the cost of more computational time. By the use of hybrid approaches, potentially dangerous regions (e.g. bottlenecks) of the scenario can be calculated by models with a higher resolution, while the remaining parts are sim...

Computer simulations using Cellular Automata (CA) have been applied with considerable success in different scientific areas, such as chemistry, biochemistry, economy, physics, etc. In this work we use CA in order to specify and implement a simulation model that allows to investigate behavioral dynamics for pedestrians in an emergency evacuation. In particular, we will concentrate on those cases that involve the forced evacuation of a large number of people due to the threat of the fire, within a building with a specific number of exits. The work includes a brief introduction to the main concepts of CA that were considered for implementing the simulation model. As support of the model, a new simulation system named EVAC is presented which allows to design, construct, execute, visualize and analyze different configurations of the building to be evacuated. The experimental work allows to identify important safety aspects to be considered at the time of designing a building, to detect the strengths of the CA approach when used as simulation tool and to suggest possible extensions that would allow to represent some particularities of the problem in a more suitable way.

Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 2008

Considering the fact that the interaction among pedestrians in a high-density crowd is asymmetric, accumulative and transferable, we present a modified floor field cellular automata model for simulating the pedestrian evacuation. In this model, the space for evacuation is discretized into smaller cells, every pedestrian is allowed to occupy multiple cells and the interaction among pedestrians is characterized by their own inertia and the forces received or to be imposed on others. By numerical simulation the effects of the pedestrian movement manner and the model parameters on evacuation efficiency are investigated. The results obtained by our modified model are compared with those by the original floor field model.