Pedestrians moving in dark: Balancing measures and playing games on lattices

We present two conceptually new modeling approaches aimed at describing the motion of pedestrians in obscured corridors: * a Becker-D\"{o}ring-type dynamics * a probabilistic cellular automaton model. In both models the group formation is affected by a threshold. The pedestrians are supposed to have very limited knowledge about their current position and their neighborhood; they can form groups up to a certain size and they can leave them. Their main goal is to find the exit of the corridor. Although being of mathematically different character, the discussion of both models shows that it seems to be a disadvantage for the individual to adhere to larger groups. We illustrate this effect numerically by solving both model systems. Finally we list some of our main open questions and conjectures

From mindless masses to small groups: Conceptualizing collective behavior in crowd modeling.

Computer simulations are increasingly used to monitor and predict behavior at large crowd events, such as mass gatherings, festivals and evacuations. We critically examine the crowd modeling literature and call for future simulations of crowd behavior to be based more closely on findings from current social psychological research. A systematic review was conducted on the crowd modeling literature (N = 140 articles) to identify the assumptions about crowd behavior that modelers use in their simulations. Articles were coded according to the way in which crowd structure was modeled. It was found that 2 broad types are used: mass approaches and small group approaches. However, neither the mass nor the small group approaches can accurately simulate the large collective behavior that has been found in extensive empirical research on crowd events. We argue that to model crowd behavior realistically, simulations must use methods which allow crowd members to identify with each other, as suggested by self-categorization theory

Understanding Urban Mobility and Pedestrian Movement

Urban environments continue to expand and mutate, both in terms of size of urban area and number of people commuting daily as well as the number of options for personal mobility. City layouts and infrastructure also change constantly, subject to both short-term and long-term imperatives. Transportation networks have attracted particular attention in recent years, due to efforts to incorporate “green” options, enabling positive lifestyle choices such as walking or cycling commutes. In this chapter we explore the pedestrian viewpoint, aids to familiarity with and ease of navigation in the urban environment, and the impact of novel modes of individual transport (as options such as smart urban bicycles and electric scooters increasingly become the norm). We discuss principal factors influencing rapid transit to daily and leisure destinations, such as schools, offices, parks, and entertainment venues, but also those which facilitate rapid evacuation and movement of large crowds from these locations, characterized by high occupation density or throughput. The focus of the chapter is on understanding and representing pedestrian behavior through the agent-based modeling paradigm, allowing both large numbers of individual actions with active awareness of the environment to be simulated and pedestrian group movements to be modeled on real urban networks, together with congestion and evacuation pattern visualization

Simulating Earthquake Evacuation Using Human Behavior Models

In classical earthquake risk assessment the human behavior is actually not take into account in risk assessment. Agent-based modeling is a simulation technique that has been applied recently in several fields,such as emergency evacuation. The paper is proposing a methodology that includes in agent-based models the human behavior, considering the anxiety effects generated by the crowd and their influence on the evacuation delays. The proposed model is able to take into account the interdependency between the earthquake evacuation process and the corresponding damage of structural and non-structural components which is expressed in term of fragility curves. The software REPAST HPC has been used to implement the model and as case study the earthquake evacuation by a mall located in Oakland has been used. The human behavior model has been calibrated through a survey using a miscellaneous sample from different countries. The model can be used to test future scenarios and help local authorities in situations where the human behavior plays a key role