Crowd Movement Model Research Articles

Fire Safety Assessment of a Typical Sports Hall Building Based on Fire Dynamics and Crowd Movement Models

Fire risk analysis is one of the essential components of building design to ensure the safety of occupants and properties in case of fires. Currently, the Ministry of Public Works and Housing Regulation No. 20/PRT/M/2009 provides guidelines for conducting a fire risk analysis, however, without a clear consideration of fire dynamics in the estimation of the fire risk level. In this work, we investigate the fire safety aspects of a typical sports hall buildings by a fire dynamics deterministic model (Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) of the National Institute of Science and Technology, USA) and crowd movement model for occupant evacuation (Pathfinder of Thunderhead Engineering). Systematic investigations were made on the effects of the fire growth category and smoke extraction system on the Available Safe Egress Time (ASET). The results of ASET were then compared to the Required Safe Egress Time (RSET) which is obtained from the evacuation model. Our results suggest that ASET decreases exponentially with fire growth rate, especially from slow to medium growth rate. The fire growth rate significantly affects the acceptable fire risk of ASET longer than RSET. Occupant capacity, fire management systems, and smoke extraction systems play important roles in reducing fire risk. However, as the fire growth rate increases, the effects of smoke extraction in maintaining safe conditions diminish. This study provides recommendations to reduce risks to the occupants in case of fire, contributing to the considerations of the design and management of a typical sports hall building.

Analysis of Toilet Scale of Freeway Service Areas Based on Crowd Gatherings

On fully enclosed freeways, the service area is the only key node for certain crowd activities such as resting, toileting, and dining. In these activities, using the toilet is the most important purpose for people to enter the service area. A reasonable toilet location and size in the service area is the basis for its efficient operation. This study conducts field surveys on several service areas, including Meicun, Tai’an, and Qianxian, through video recording and crowd tracking questionnaires. We summarize and analyze the characteristics of population flow in Chinese freeway service areas. The key data obtained through field surveys are reported, such as the priority and length of stay of customers in the facilities during peak hours at weekends, to analyze the characteristics of pedestrian traffic in the service areas. Finally, based on a large number of pedestrian simulation methods used in studies on the layout of subways and airport facilities, the AnyLogic simulation software is applied to establish a crowd movement model for these areas. The study not only obtained the pedestrian characteristics of the service area but also showed that only changing the location of toilets has no effect on the efficiency of toilet use without changing the level of service, whereas changing the number of toilets has a significant impact on the efficiency. Most importantly, this paper establishes a relationship model between the toilet size of the service area and the service area pedestrians flow; when the toilet seats 266/158/148 people, the maximum flow of people in the service area is about 3,115/2200/2000 p/h, which can provide help for the scale design of the service area.

Dynamics of emotional contagion in dense pedestrian crowds

In places with high-density pedestrian movements, irrational emotions can quickly spread out under emergency, which may eventually lead to asphyxiation and crushing. It was noticed that a pedestrian's emotion in crowd would change as a result of the influence from other pedestrians. Thus, to explore the dynamics of emotion contagion process in dense pedestrians, two types of pedestrian emotions, i.e., negative and positive have been identified. Taking into account the emotional transit of a pedestrian, a crowd movement model is established in the present paper. We simulate pedestrian movement in a region with periodic boundary condition to study the dynamics of emotional contagion in dense crowds. Influences of the initial negative pedestrian proportion, pedestrian crowd density, emotion influence radius, and dose factor on the transition of overall crowd emotion state have been investigated. We expect this study could provide theoretical suggestions for crowd management.

Physics-based modeling of crowd evacuation in the Unity game engine

Crowds of people are often found in enclosed or constricted spaces. Evacuation in such situations is usually conducted calmly, but real or perceived danger may trigger panic. In panicked crowds, the interpersonal distance crowd members normally observe is often overwhelmed by the physical pressure of crowd members pushing against each other. That pressure can both slow evacuation and lead to injury or death. Models have been developed to study crowd evacuation in a range of situations. This paper describes the implementation, testing, and validation of a crowd evacuation model using Unity, a commercial computer game engine. A realistic physics-based model of crowd movement that calculates and considers the physical pressure crowd members exert on each other was implemented in Unity. The implemented model was tested under both nonpanicked and panicked scenarios; those tests exhibited known qualitative characteristics of such scenarios. The model was then quantitatively validated by comparing its results to the outcome of an actual evacuation event, the 2003 fire at The Station nightclub in Rhode Island. The implementation and validation show that Unity can be an effective tool for evacuation modeling.

A crowd movement model for pedestrian flow through bottlenecks

One of the main objectives of crowd modeling is to optimize evacuation and improve the design of pedestrian facilities. In this work, a sensitivity analysis is performed to study the effect of the parameters of a 2D discrete crowd movement model on the nature of pedestrian’s collision and on evacuation times. After presenting the proposed model in its full version (three degrees of freedom for each individual), a pedestrian–pedestrian collision is considered. We identified the parameters that govern this type of collision and studied their effects on it. Then an evacuation experiment of a facility with a bottleneck exit is introduced and its configuration is used for numerical simulations. It is shown that without introducing a social repulsive force, the obtained flow rate values are much higher than the experimental ones. For this reason, we introduced the social force as defined by Helbing and performed a parametric study to find the set of optimized values of this force’s parameters that enables us to achieve simulation results close to the experimental ones. Using the values of the parameters obtained from the parametric study, the evacuation simulations give flow rate values that are closer to the experimental ones. The same optimized model is then used to find the density in front and inside the bottleneck and to reproduce the lane formation phenomenon as was observed in the experiment. Finally, the obtained results are analyzed and discussed.

The Design and Implementation of Prototype System for Choreography and Rehearsed Based on Virtual Simulation Technology

This paper use crowd simulation and virtual reality technology design choreography prototype system. Based on the analysis and research of group calisthenics performance’s choreography work draws the related theory of crowd movement model, proposes a crowd movement model which can describe actor behavior in group calisthenics. This paper is divided into three parts; the first part introduces the development of group gymnastics in China. The second part introduces the structure and function of group calisthenics prototype system. The third part focuses on the design and implementation of a prototype, at the same time provides a useful reference for depth study of virtual crowd simulation.

A minor modification in the model for describing congestion and recovery along evacuation paths

In an emergency evacuation, evacuation paths are often prone to congestion, possibly resulting in congestion and stampede accidents. From the viewpoint of crowd behavior, relations between crowd density and pedestrian speed and between crowd density and the crowd flow rate are established, and crowd movement along evacuation paths is analyzed. A basic model of crowd movement along evacuation paths is developed and allows detailed analysis of the effect of the initial crowd density on congestion. Finally, the relationship between crowd congestion density and speed of recovery and a method of calculating the time of congestion disappearance are presented. This research will assist on-site management in preventing possible crushing and stampede accidents during large-scale social activities.

Implementing a physics-based model of crowd movement using the Unreal Development Kit

Abstract Crowds of people form in both civilian and military contexts, often in emergency or dangerous situations. Consequently, modelling crowd behaviour and movement has consistently been a subject of research, and such models have been used to study, for example, evacuation scenarios and the effect of crowds on military operations. Recreating realistic crowd behaviour and crowd movement within game engines is of growing interest for both gaming and non-gaming applications. A physically realistic mathematical model of crowd movement that considers the physical pressures the crowd members exert on each other was implemented using computer games technology, specifically the Unreal Engine and the Unreal Development Kit. The model and its implementation were used to simulate two typical evacuation scenarios, orderly and panicked, and the simulations exhibited specific known characteristics of such scenarios. Detailed explanations and examples of the implementation mechanics are provided to facilitate future game technology-based crowd modelling.

Agent-Based Crowd Evacuation Modeling in Buildings

Crowd evacuation in large and complex buildings is becoming a challenging direction in the field of emergency management. In the paper, we present an agent-based approach to modeling crowd evacuation, including navigator model and crowd movement model. Visualization results show these models can access to realistic evacuation process and achieve the goal of rapid evacuation.