Pedestrian, Crowd, and Evacuation Dynamics

This contribution describes efforts to model the behavior of individual pedestrians and their interactions in crowds, which generate certain kinds of self-organized patterns of motion. Moreover, this article focusses on the dynamics of crowds in panic or evacuation situations, methods to optimize building designs for egress, and factors potentially causing the breakdown of orderly motion.Comment: This is a review paper. For related work see http://www.soms.ethz.c

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

Internet of Things-based Traffic Management System for Maseru, Lesotho.

Published ThesisThe number of vehicles in Maseru has been steadily increasing, leading to heightened intensity of congestion and traffic occurrences. This is further exacerbated by ineffective solutions that are currently in place as well as the absence of tools that facilitate dispersal of information to motorists. Traffic lights have been put in place to manage flow of traffic but are becoming increasingly inefficient due to their design. The preset timing cycles between green, amber and red disregarding prevailing conditions leads, inter alia, to increased wait times, use of additional fuel and air pollution. In addition, lack of equipment that is able to provide motorists with information about prevailing road conditions further increases the possibility of one being stuck in traffic. To make traffic management more efficient at signaled junctions, the implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm is used to create intelligent traffic management systems such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and fuzzy algorithms to intelligently decide the phases of traffic lights. Road density and vehicles’ speeds are collected from the road infrastructure using cameras and are passed to a fuzzy algorithm to determine how congested a road is. Dependent on these parameters, the algorithm will also determine which roads should be given highest priority while maintaining a degree of fairness, thus optimizing traffic flow. In addition, the ubiquitous provision of road condition information to motorists in various formats such as text and audio is also used. This feature allows for the acquisition of the latest road status, thus making it possible to find alternative routes. The unique feature in this project is the ability to collect road parameters from the road infrastructure itself, using WSN as well as crowd source data from road users using mobile devices. A study conducted in this research revealed a relationship between the number of cars on a road and concentration of Carbon Dioxide (CO2); the results showed that as the number of cars increases, so does the measure of CO2. Questionnaire-based surveys showed that Maseru citizens have noted an increase in congestion which they attributed to the increase in number of vehicles on the road that is not met by the increase or improvement in road infrastructure. The respondents in this survey also noted limited mechanisms that provide them with road conditions and highlighted that such tools may alleviate congestion. The performance of intelligent traffic lights was conducted via simulations compared with fixed cycle traffic lights. From the simulations it was observed that IoT- based traffic management systems reduced the wait times of vehicles at signaled junctions which would also result in reduction of the pollutant CO2. It is envisaged that the future implementation will include the ability to manage a network of junctions and ability to predict abnormal traffic flows

Promoting Bicycle Commuter Safety, Research Report 11-08

We present an overview of the risks associated with cycling to emphasize the need for safety. We focus on the application of frameworks from social psychology to education, one of the 5 Es—engineering, education, enforcement, encouragement, and evaluation. We use the structure of the 5 Es to organize information with particular attention to engineering and education in the literature review. Engineering is essential because the infrastructure is vital to protecting cyclists. Education is emphasized since the central focus of the report is safety

Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street

In September 2011, waves of protests against mounting socioeconomic injustice broke out across the United States, capturing the attention of the country. The Occupy Wall Street movement, inspired by similar protests around the globe, used the occupation of public space and mass demonstrations to call attention to a wide array of shared concerns. The movement also used public assemblies to debate concerns and promote direct democratic participation. Within weeks of their emergence, the protests dramatically expanded and deepened U.S. political discourse around the widening gap between rich and poor, bank bailouts and impunity for financial crimes, and the role of money in politics. The response of U.S. authorities to the protests also received significant attention. Images of police using pepper spray on seated students, the arrests of thousands of peaceful protesters across the country, midnight raids on encampments, baton-swinging officers, marches accompanied by phalanxes of riot police, and officers obstructing and arresting journalists were beamed around the world. This is the first in a series of reports examining the responses of U.S. authorities to the Occupy protests. Through an eight-month-long study of the response in New York City, together with comparative data collected from cities across the United States, this report highlights major policy concerns and serious violations of the rights of protesters. Further detailed studies will be published in the coming months on the response of authorities in Boston, Charlotte, Oakland, and San Francisco. Government responses to Occupy Wall Street in the United States have varied significantly, both within and across cities. Indeed, there have been examples of good practice, including through welcoming assemblies, using modern democratic policing styles that promote negotiation to facilitate protests, and enforcing strict controls on any use of police force. But across the United States, abusive and unlawful protest regulation and policing practices have been and continue to be alarmingly evident. This report follows a review of thousands of news reports and hundreds of hours of video, extensive firsthand observation, and detailed witness interviews

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 Protection