Simulating People Flows

In situations where experiments are too costly or disruptive one resorts to simulation methods in order to evaluate the quantitative effects of changes in the infrastructure or the impact of unusual events (e.g. defective escalators) on the pedestrian flows. The main challenge in this respect is to develop realistic mathematical descriptions of the examined phenomena which typically are obtained by calibrating the parameters of suitable mathematical models using measured people motion data arsenal research comprises competences both in data acquisition as well as in statistical modelling that are combined to produce simulation models capable of reproducing real world situations. Scientific literature within this field of research only recently documented first steps for model calibration.

The following image shows an example for the calibration of a social force model with real data measured with a laser-rangefinder in the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory (PAMELA) at University College London.

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Simulation models are always ‘tailor made’ and need input from measurements in the considered infrastructure. arsenal research provides an interdisciplinary team of experts covering all stages of the model building process. In combination with the availability of suitable real world data sets this allows for the development of new methods for data driven generation of simulation models.