Title

Crowd Dynamics Simulation Research

Abstract

This paper reports on research aimed at providing a more realistic simulation model of crowd behavior under both panic and non-panic conditions and both in a constrained (room) and unconstrained (outside) environment by considering individual differences in age, gender, culture and ethnicity. Such simulations will be of great value both in operational and training contexts. Many operations deal with crowd control and accurate simulations of crowd dynamics. The explicit incorporation of gender, ethnicity, age, and cultural differences as factors in the model will ensure broad applicability of the research to crowd control in nations other than the U.S. The approach is based on a Social Force Model which consists of two components: social interaction and physical interaction. The social interaction relies on an individual's desire for personal space and the physical interaction consists of body compression and friction. To be generalizable beyond modeling of crowds in the U. S., the simulation needs to capture the effect of culture on personal space. Culture definitely plays a key role in the size of personal space. For example, Japanese prefer a larger surrounding space than Americans, while Italians prefer a smaller personal space. Physical contact between cultural groups also varies. Additionally, to be a widely accepted, usable model, it will be necessary to validate the behavior of the entities in the simulation against the behavior of real crowds captured on video. This validation will also help to fine tune the model parameters to reflect different crowd compositions. These results will support research in sociology, economics, and psychology. They will also provide improved implementation of emergency management simulations thereby providing broad societal benefits. Additionally architectural design for work and public spaces or for egress during panic conditions will be improved.

Publication Date

12-1-2006

Publication Title

Summer Computer Simulation Conference 2006, SCSC'06, Part of the 2006 Summer Simulation Multiconference, SummerSim'06

Number of Pages

365-370

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

Socpus ID

84869017904 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84869017904

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