People flow modelling - benefits and applications within industry

Within the design of any building, there is a requirement for designers to understand the intended purposes of the building and the elements that influence performance. These elements can be as tangible as providing a lecture hall within a university or relatively intangible such as the environmental temperatures of the rooms. The elements involved are generally recognised within the design industry and a combined force of engineers, architects, and specialist advisors work together to ensure all of the elements are in place for each new design. However, one element affecting performance that has not yet been comprehensively covered (at least for many building types) is that relating to occupant movement and the influence this has on experience and hence performance. For example, the number of times people have to negotiate cross-flow environments in a train station before becoming agitated is unknown. Also, the average distance people will walk through a shopping centre before becoming tired and ending the activity is unknown. Even so, they will both be impacted upon by the design and they will both reflect back on the performance of the design. Before starting this research, it was realised by the research engineer that there was only a limited understanding and application of people flow analyses within industry and, where it existed, it was solely related to transport terminals, pedestrian walkways/crossings, sports stadia arrivals/egress, and evacuation analyses

Towards predicting Pedestrian Evacuation Time and Density from Floorplans using a Vision Transformer

Conventional pedestrian simulators are inevitable tools in the design process of a building, as they enable project engineers to prevent overcrowding situations and plan escape routes for evacuation. However, simulation runtime and the multiple cumbersome steps in generating simulation results are potential bottlenecks during the building design process. Data-driven approaches have demonstrated their capability to outperform conventional methods in speed while delivering similar or even better results across many disciplines. In this work, we present a deep learning-based approach based on a Vision Transformer to predict density heatmaps over time and total evacuation time from a given floorplan. Specifically, due to limited availability of public datasets, we implement a parametric data generation pipeline including a conventional simulator. This enables us to build a large synthetic dataset that we use to train our architecture. Furthermore, we seamlessly integrate our model into a BIM-authoring tool to generate simulation results instantly and automatically

Emergency crowd simulation for outdoor environments

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We simulate virtual crowds in emergency situations caused by an incident, such as a fire, an explosion, or a terrorist attack. We use a continuum dynamics-based approach to simulate the escaping crowd, which produces more efficient simulations than the agent-based approaches. Only the close proximity of the incident region, which includes the crowd affected by the incident, is simulated. We use a model-based rendering approach where a polygonal mesh is rendered for each agent according to the agent's skeletal motion. To speed up the animation and visualization, we employ an offline occlusion culling technique. We animate and render a pedestrian model only if it is visible according to the static visibility information computed. In the pre-processing stage, the navigable area is decomposed into a grid of cells and the from-region visibility of these cells is computed with the help of hardware occlusion queries. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Mass evacuation - human behavior and crowd dynamics - What do we know?

The field of mass evacuation has existed for a long time. Already during the Roman Empire era evacuation problematic was considered. In modern times the field has gained more attention during the last couple of decades, especially for sports grounds and stadiums. Through analysis of some well-known historical crowd disasters and through a literature survey the aim has been to compile the most important findings. The aim has also been to analyze problem areas, knowledge and development opportunities. Regarding the problems of mass evacuation, preventive measures like design and contingency plan is of high importance. In addition there is a need for good communication and to take proper actions when an accident occurs. Some phenomenon that may arise during crowded situations have been found. These phenomenon are an indication that a catastrophic situation might emerge. With knowledge and understanding of those the expectation is, with the help of live video recordings and simulation softwares, to get a warning about the elevated risk for the crowd

Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

Modelling human network behaviour using simulation and optimization tools: the need for hybridization

The inclusion of stakeholder behaviour in Operations Research / Industrial Engineering (OR/IE) models has gained much attention in recent years. Behavioural and cognitive traits of people and groups have been integrated in simulation models (mainly through agent-based approaches) as well as in optimization algorithms. However, especially the influence of relations between different actors in human networks is a broad and interdisciplinary topic that has not yet been fully investigated. This paper analyses, from an OR/IE point of view, the existing literature on behaviour-related factors in human networks. This review covers different application fields, including: supply chain management, public policies in emergency situations, and Internet-based human networks. The review reveals that the methodological approach of choice (either simulation or optimization) is highly dependent on the application area. However, an integrated approach combining simulation and optimization is rarely used. Thus, the paper proposes the hybridization of simulation with optimization as one of the best strategies to incorporate human behaviour in human networks and the resulting uncertainty, randomness, and dynamism in related OR/IE models.Peer Reviewe

Development of a holistic approach to integrate fire safety performance with building design

Building fire safety is significantly influenced by building and fire safety regulations (often codes and standards). These regulations specify what fire safety measures should be included in a given building as a minimum requirement. Since fire engineers develop fire safety designs based on the regulations, they are often viewed as the primary agents in ensuring the fire safety of buildings. However, their mission often starts with given building design features, such as interior spatial layout, exterior shape, site plan, and so forth, which are mostly determined by architects (or architects). Although architects design buildings within the boundaries of the regulatory requirements, their focus is not generally on fire safety, but more on visual and spatial aesthetics of buildings. These objectives are linked to building form and functionality, which are not subject to the building and fire safety regulations. These objectives can sometimes compete with fire safety objectives in such a way that buildings can be unsafe in certain situations due to unintended effects of building design features on actual fire safety performance. To determine whether a building has design features which work against fire safety performance, evaluation of building fire safety performance must take into account the effects of building design features. If fire safety performance is significantly decreased by building design attributes, additional fire safety measures or modifications of the building design should be incorporated to provide an appropriate level of fire safety performance. While there have been various building fire safety evaluation tools developed over the last forty or so years, none of them comprehensively considers building design features and their associated effects as key performance parameters. In this context, the current study develops conceptual models for fire safety performance assessment in both qualitative and quantitative manners. After scrutinizing previous fire incidents and the building features which contributed to their outcomes, various fire safety performance attributes, including building design features, are identified and cause-effect relationships among the attributes are established. Then, the attributes are organized hierarchically like a tree diagram such that the performance of one upper level attribute is determined by the combined performance of multiple lower level attributes. In this way, the performance of bottom level attributes propagates upward to the upper level attributes. Two tree diagrams are established for the most common fire safety objectives, life safety and property protection. Each attribute in the tree diagrams has two quantified values: performance value and weighting factor. The current study uses three different performance values (0.01, 0.5, and 1) for bottom level attributes representing poor, average and good performance, respectively. In addition, as each attribute can have different contribution to upper level attributes, a weighting factor between 0 and 1 is assigned to each attribute which represent the relative importance. With these two values, the performance value of an upper level attribute is calculated using the weighted sum method (summation of multiplied values of performance value and weighting factor) which is commonly used in the Analytical Hierarchy Process. As the performance of an attributes is a function of specific designs, building uses, occupants, and site conditions, in the first instance, judgments of the fire engineers can be used to assign weights and performance values, but they can also be determined jointly among stakeholders. Generally speaking, the details of attributes for fire safety performance are not determined at once. Rather they are gradually determined as the building design progresses. This means that in early design building design phase, many of the attributes are unknown as well as fire safety performance. Once appropriate information can be provided to architects by fire engineers at each building design phase, it is likely to avoid possible conflicts between design details and fire safety performance. Using the fire safety evaluation model, weak attributes for fire safety performance can be identified and possible make-up strategy and building design approach can be developed in advance. This provides the potential for the collaboration between fire engineers and architects and at the end for increasing building fire safety performance of buildings

A review on the hospital evacuation simulation models

Developing a safe, effective, and timely evacuation plan is challenging in complex buildings like hospitals. Although accurate evacuation drills could enhance the efficiency of evacuation strategies, conducting it in health care environments is extremely difficult. Thus, evacuation simulation is more feasible as it could lead to achieving safer evacuation. However, most of the existing literature focuses on normal evacuation instead of assisted evacuation. Assisted evacuation feature is a must to correctly simulate the evacuation of hospital staff and non-ambulant patients. This paper summarizes the main literature studies on hospital evacuation simulation and offers an overview of some of the evacuation models that support assisted evacuation. Based on the review we have summarized the basic modelling requirements for hospital evacuation simulation model. We have also evaluated the reviewed models. Our study found that, some of the existing models (e.g., Building-Exodus, Pathfinder) are capable of simulating hospital evacuation properly. However, most of the existing agent-based evacuation simulations implement rule-based AI rather than self-learning AI. The possibilities of self-learning AI can be explored further. We believe that this review will assist researchers in developing more feasible and reliable hospital evacuation simulation models that will help the hospital authorities to properly evaluate their evacuation strategies and ensure the safety of the hospital occupants

Enhancing pedestrian evacuation routes during flood events

The increasing rate of anthropic activities in flood-prone areas and the effects of climate change are aggravating the dangers posed by floods to people. One of the main reasons for fatality during flood events is walking through floodwaters. Although authorities strongly advise against walking in flood waters, evacuations or the accessing of flooded areas by emergency services might be necessary. This research proposes a novel approach to increasing resilience by retrofitting existing infrastructures to enhance evacuation and access routes by reducing flood hazard rate based on flood and pedestrian characteristics. The methodology was applied to flash floods in two case studies in the UK, namely Boscastle and Borth, highlighting that retrofitting small regions of the existing roads and pathways to reduce flood hazard can enhance people’s safety during the evacuation, and hence provides a solution to improve the resilience of the existing environment