Chapter Eleven - Pedestrian Dynamics

Abstract

This chapter provides an introduction to the modeling of pedestrian dynamics. It is different from most of the other systems since the motion is genuinely two dimensional. Vehicular traffic is mostly one-dimensional or quasi-one-dimensional through the existence of lanes that allow only unidirectional motion. Therefore, one usually deals with a well-defined ordering of vehicles, which is rarely changed through overtaking manoeuvres. Interactions with nearest neighbors are most important, which simplifies modeling considerably. In pedestrian dynamics, however, the situation is more complex, and interactions with other individuals in a certain range have to be taken into account. The most important interactions are not necessarily with the nearest individuals, but might also depend on the relative direction of the velocities. This makes the modeling more challenging theoretically and gives rise to new phenomena related to the spatiotemporal evolution and organization. This complex nature of the mutual interactions between pedestrians gives rise to several self-organization phenomena, which are not observed in vehicular traffic. Therefore, only very few models exist, which can reproduce the empirically observed behavior accurately. A comprehensive theory of pedestrian dynamics has to take into account three different levels of behavior, which are discussed. A brief glimpse is provided into different applications in the area of evacuations and safety analysis.