Preventing congestion in crowd dynamics caused by reversing flow

Annals of Solid and Structural Mechanics, 2016

One of the main objectives of crowd modeling is to optimize evacuation and improve the design of pedestrian facilities. In this work, a sensitivity analysis is performed to study the effect of the parameters of a 2D discrete crowd movement model on the nature of pedestrian's collision and on evacuation times. After presenting the proposed model in its full version (three degrees of freedom for each individual), a pedestrian-pedestrian collision is considered. We identified the parameters that govern this type of collision and studied their effects on it. Then an evacuation experiment of a facility with a bottleneck exit is introduced and its configuration is used for numerical simulations. It is shown that without introducing a social repulsive force, the obtained flow rate values are much higher than the experimental ones. For this reason, we introduced the social force as defined by Helbing and performed a parametric study to find the set of optimized values of this force's parameters that enables us to achieve simulation results close to the experimental ones. Using the values of the parameters obtained from the parametric study, the evacuation simulations give flow rate values that are closer to the experimental ones. The same optimized model is then used to find the density in front and inside the bottleneck and to reproduce the lane formation phenomenon as was observed in the experiment. Finally, the obtained results are analyzed and discussed.

An analytical study is proposed in this paper to investigate pedestrian crowd dynamics from a multidisciplinary approach (i.e. traffic engineering and social science) focusing on the impact of environment physical features and social interaction on pedestrian movement dynamics in high-density situations on pedestrian movement dynamics in highdensity situations. Taking advantage of previous studies that highlighted the importance of turning movements of crowd during evacuations, we empirically investigated the impact of angled paths on orderly crowd egress flows. We also proposed to consider the social interaction among pedestrians, taking into account the presence of groups and their proxemics behavior while walking. Results of the flow rates level and walking speed of different scenarios studied in this work are presented (0°, 45°, 60° and 90° angle degrees). These showed that in high-density situations the walking speed of group members was lower compared to the singles within all scenarios studied, because of the need to stay close to own group members while walking. Likewise, the angle path with 60° degrees (compared to the scenario of corridor with 0° degrees) has a significant negative impact on both the flow rate and walking speed. These results could be of notable interest for all generic crowd models aiming at replicating crowd dynamics.

2006

Symmetry

This paper proposes a critical analysis of the literature addressed to modelling and simulations of human crowds with the aim of selecting the most appropriate scale out of the microscopic (individual based), mesoscopic (kinetic), and macroscopic (hydrodynamical) approaches. The selection is made focusing on possible applications of the model. In particular, model validation and safety problems, where validation consists of studying the ability of models to depict empirical data and observed emerging behaviors. The contents of the paper look forward to computational applications related to the flow crowds on the Jamarat bridge.

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2011

An agent-based model to simulate a pedestrian crowd in a corridor is presented. Pedestrian crowd models are valuable tools to gain insight into the behavior of human crowds in both, everyday and crisis situations. The main contribution of this work is the definition of a pedestrian crowd model by applying ideas from the field of the kinetic theory of living systems on the one hand, and ideas from the field of computational agents on the other hand. Such combination supported a quantitative characterization of the performance of our agents, a neglected issue in agent-based models, through well-known kinetic parameters. Fundamental diagrams of flow and activity are presented for both, groups of homogeneous pedestrians, and groups of heterogeneous pedestrians in terms of their willingness to reach their goals.

… and evacuation dynamics, 2002

Starting with a short review of the available literature in the field of pedestrian and evacuation research, an overview is given over the observed collective phenomena in pedestrian crowds. This includes lane formation in corridors and oscillations at bottlenecks in normal situations, while different kinds of blocked states are produced in panic situations. By means of molecular-dynamic-like microsimulations based on a generalized force model of interactive pedestrian dynamics, the spatio-temporal patterns in pedestrian crowds are successfully reproduced and interpreted as self-organized phenomena. In contrast to previous socio-psychological approaches, this allows a physical understanding of the observations. Despite the significantly different phenomena occuring in normal and panic situations, the main effects can be described by a unified model containing only well interpretable and plausible terms. The transition between the "rational" normal behavior and the apparently "irrational" panic behavior is controlled by a single parameter, the "nervousness", which influences fluctuation strengths, desired speeds, and the tendency of herding. Thereby, it causes paradoxial effects like "freezing by heating", "faster is slower", and the ignorance of available exits. Nevertheless, there are measures to improve pedestrian flows, both in normal and panic situations. For example, the suitable placement of columns can help, although they reduce the accessible space.

Transportation …, 2005

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2017

h i g h l i g h t s • We analyze a mathematical model of the formation of lanes in crowds. • We prove that the system self-organizes. • We compute the time required for self-organization.

… of Complexity and Systems Science. Berlin: …, 2009

Safety Science, 2009

This paper highlights the growing need for a realistic crowd simulation in the design of large venues such as concert halls and stadia. A discrete element method (DEM) technique for modelling crowd dynamics has been developed that represents each person within the model as 3 overlapping circles, a position, orientation and velocity in 2D. Contact forces between elements are included in the model as well as psychological forces, motive forces and moments. The motion of each person is then modelled in a Newtonian manner with a numerical integration time-stepping scheme. The model has been shown previously to work well in predicting egress. In this paper the predicted model behaviour is compared to actual video footage shot at various locations around University Park Campus, Nottingham. It did not match well to the video footage when people are moving towards each other, as in cases of contra-flow on a walkway. In order to improve the model, a general algorithm for 'avoidance' was included which appeared to make the model significantly more realistic in these cases. The paper also shows areas for further potential development, such as incorporating people into associative groups such as family or friends.