Development of a microscopic crowd dynamic model: incorporating decision making capability Into the social force model.

Model daya sosial adalah salah satu model pejalan kaki mikroskopik yang paling berjaya yang mewakili fenomena dirancang dengan baik bagi aliran pejalan kaki. Bagaimanapun, keupayaan pejalan-pejalan kaki untuk membuat keputusan dalam situasi-situasi kecemasan dan normal tidak digabungkan dengan betul ke dalam model. The Social Force Model is one of the most successful microscopic pedestrian models that represent the well-organized phenomena of the pedestrian flow. However, the pedestrians‟ abilities to make decisions in normal and emergency situations have not been incorporated properly into the model

Role of opinion sharing on the emergency evacuation dynamics

Emergency evacuation is a critical research topic and any improvement to the existing evacuation models will help in improving the safety of the evacuees. Currently, there are evacuation models that have either an accurate movement model or a sophisticated decision model. Individuals in a crowd tend to share and propagate their opinion. This opinion sharing part is either implicitly modeled or entirely overlooked in most of the existing models. Thus, one of the overarching goal of this research is to the study the effect of opinion evolution through an evacuating crowd. First, the opinion evolution in a crowd was modeled mathematically. Next, the results from the analytical model were validated with a simulation model having a simple motion model. To improve the fidelity of the evacuation model, a more realistic movement and decision model were incorporated and the effect of opinion sharing on the evacuation dynamics was studied extensively. Further, individuals with strong inclination towards particular route were introduced and their effect on overall efficiency was studied. Current evacuation guidance algorithms focuses on efficient crowd evacuation. The method of guidance delivery is generally overlooked. This important gap in guidance delivery is addressed next. Additionally, a virtual reality based immersive experiment is designed to study factors affecting individuals\u27 decision making during emergency evacuation

Modeling, Evaluation, and Scale on Artificial Pedestrians: A Literature Review

Modeling pedestrian dynamics and their implementation in a computer are challenging and important issues in the knowledge areas of transportation and computer simulation. The aim of this article is to provide a bibliographic outlook so that the reader may have quick access to the most relevant works related to this problem. We have used three main axes to organize the article's contents: pedestrian models, validation techniques, and multiscale approaches. The backbone of this work is the classification of existing pedestrian models; we have organized the works in the literature under five categories, according to the techniques used for implementing the operational level in each pedestrian model. Then the main existing validation methods, oriented to evaluate the behavioral quality of the simulation systems, are reviewed. Furthermore, we review the key issues that arise when facing multiscale pedestrian modeling, where we first focus on the behavioral scale (combinations of micro and macro pedestrian models) and second on the scale size (from individuals to crowds). The article begins by introducing the main characteristics of walking dynamics and its analysis tools and concludes with a discussion about the contributions that different knowledge fields can make in the near future to this exciting area

Physical crowds and psychological crowds: applying self-categorization theory to computer simulation of collective behaviour

Computer models are used to simulate pedestrian behaviour for safety at mass events. Previous research has indicated differences between physical crowds of co-present individuals, and psychological crowds who mobilise collective behaviour through a shared social identity. This thesis aimed to examine the assumptions models use about crowds, conduct two studies of crowd movement to ascertain the behavioural signatures of psychological crowds, and implement these into a theoretically-driven model of crowd behaviour. A systematic review of crowd modelling literature is presented which explores the assumptions about crowd behaviour being used in current models. This review demonstrates that models portray the crowd as either an identical mass with no inter-personal connections, unique individuals with no connections to others, or as small groups within a crowd. Thus, no models have incorporated the role of self-categorisation theory needed to simulate collective behaviour. The empirical research in this thesis aimed to determine the behavioural effects of self-categorisation on pedestrian movement. Findings from a first study illustrate that, in comparison to a physical crowd, perception of shared social identities in the psychological crowd motivated participants to maintain close proximity with ingroup members through regulation of their speed and distance walked. A second study showed that collective self-organisation seemed to be increased by the presence of an outgroup, causing ingroup members to tighten formation to avoid splitting up. Finally, a computer model is presented which implements the quantified behavioural effects of self-categorisation found in the behavioural studies. A self-categorisation parameter is introduced to simulate ingroup members self-organising to remain together. This is compared to a physical crowd simulation with group identities absent. The results demonstrate that the self-categorisation parameter provides more accurate simulation of psychological crowd behaviour. Thus, it is argued that models should implement self-categorisation into simulations of psychological crowds to increase safety at mass events

Panic That Spreads Sociobehavioral Contagion in Pedestrian Evacuations

Crowds are a part of everyday public life, from stadiums and arenas to school hallways. Occasionally, pushing within the crowd spontaneously escalates to crushing behavior, resulting in injuries and even death. The rarity and unpredictability of these incidents provides few options to collect data for research on the prediction and prevention of hazardous emergent behaviors in crowds. This study takes a close look at the way states of agitation, such as panic, can spread through crowds. Group composition—mainly family groups composed of members with differing mobility levels—plays an important role in the spread of agitation through the crowd, ultimately affecting the exit density and evacuation clearance time of a simulated venue. This study used an agent-based model of pedestrian movement during the egress of a hypothetical room and adopted an emotional, cognitive, and social framework to explore the transference and dissipation of agitation through a crowd. The preliminary results reveal that average group size in a crowd is a primary contributor to the exit density and evacuation clearance time. The study provides the groundwork on which to build more elaborate models that incorporate sociobehavioral aspects to simulate human movement during panic situations and account for the potential for dangerous behavior to emerge in crowds

Agent-based models of social behaviour and communication in evacuations: A systematic review

Most modern agent-based evacuation models involve interactions between evacuees. However, the assumed reasons for interactions and portrayal of them may be overly simple. Research from social psychology suggests that people interact and communicate with one another when evacuating and evacuee response is impacted by the way information is communicated. Thus, we conducted a systematic review of agent-based evacuation models to identify 1) how social interactions and communication approaches between agents are simulated, and 2) what key variables related to evacuation are addressed in these models. We searched Web of Science and ScienceDirect to identify articles that simulated information exchange between agents during evacuations, and social behaviour during evacuations. From the final 70 included articles, we categorised eight types of social interaction that increased in social complexity from collision avoidance to social influence based on strength of social connections with other agents. In the 17 models which simulated communication, we categorised four ways that agents communicate information: spatially through information trails or radii around agents, via social networks and via external communication. Finally, the variables either manipulated or measured in the models were categorised into the following groups: environmental condition, personal attributes of the agents, procedure, and source of information. We discuss promising directions for agent-based evacuation models to capture the effects of communication and group dynamics on evacuee behaviour. Moreover, we demonstrate how communication and group dynamics may impact the variables commonly used in agent-based evacuation models.Comment: Pre-print submitted to Safety Science special issue following the 2023 Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics conferenc

Socio-Cultural Games for Training and Analysis

This paper presents a theory for role playing simulation games intended to support analysts (and trainees) with generating and testing alternative competing hypotheses on how to influence world conflict situations. Simulated leaders and followers capable of playing these games are implemented in a cognitive modeling framework, called PMFserv, which covers value systems, personality and cultural factors, emotions, relationships, perception, stress/coping style and decision making. Of direct interest, as Section 1.1 explains, is codification and synthesis of best-of-breed social science models within PMFserv to improve the internal validity of the agent implementations. Sections 2 and 3 present this for leader profiling instruments and group membership decision-making, respectively. Section 4 then offers two real world case studies (The Third Crusade and SE Asia today) where the agent models are subjected to Turing and correspondence tests under each case study. In sum, substantial effort on game realism, best-of-breed social science models, and agent validation efforts is essential if analysis and training tools are to help explore cultural issues and alternative ways to influence outcomes. Such exercises, in turn, are likely to improve the state of the science as well

Agent-based models of social behaviour and communication in evacuations:A systematic review

Most modern agent-based evacuation models involve interactions between evacuees. However, the assumed reasons for interactions and portrayal of them may be overly simple. Research from social psychology suggests that people interact and communicate with one another when evacuating and evacuee response is impacted by the way information is communicated. Thus, we conducted a systematic review of agent-based evacuation models to identify 1) how social interactions and communication approaches between agents are simulated, and 2) what key variables related to evacuation are addressed in these models. We searched Web of Science and ScienceDirect to identify articles that simulated information exchange between agents during evacuations, and social behaviour during evacuations. From the final 70 included articles, we categorised eight types of social interaction that increased in social complexity from collision avoidance to social influence based on strength of social connections with other agents. In the 17 models which simulated communication, we categorised four ways that agents communicate information: spatially through information trails or radii around agents, via social networks and via external communication. Finally, the variables either manipulated or measured in the models were categorised into the following groups: environmental condition, personal attributes of the agents, procedure, and source of information. We discuss promising directions for agent-based evacuation models to capture the effects of communication and group dynamics on evacuee behaviour. Moreover, we demonstrate how communication and group dynamics may impact the variables commonly used in agent-based evacuation models