Civilian Characteristics and Casualties Of Terrorist Attacks in Public Places

Abstract

The crowds in public gathering places are densely populated. Once a violent terrorist attack occurs, it may cause a large number of civilian casualties. There are few researches on the dynamics of crowd in terrorist attacks, and the relationship between civilian characteristics and the consequences of attacks is unclear. We built an agent-based model of terrorist attacks in public gathering places, and explore the impact of the microscopic characteristics of civilians on the consequences of events. Firstly, we proposed a conceptual framework of terrorist attacks event occurred in public places. Then we constructed the agent models of two main groups: civilians and terrorists. We developed a multi-agent simulation system to investigate the dynamic of crowd under attacks in public space. Finally, we simulated the terrorist attacks in a city square to explore the relationship between civilian characteristics and the consequences of the event. The simulation results show that the observation range, risk sensitivity and emergency movement speed of civilians have a significant impact on the number of casualties.