Collective Dynamics (E-Journal)
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Human stampedes at mass gatherings: An overview
Full text linkThe main aim of this study is to present an overview of human stampedes and to identify the major triggering factors with respect to the type of events leading to number of fatalities and injuries. Considering major crowd incidents, the stampedes were categorized based on location, triggering factor, type of event and year of occurrence. This paper lists a total of 137 stampedes occurred all over the world between the years 1883 and 2017. The details include the name and type of event, location of the event, number of injuries and fatalities, probable reason for the stampede and type of reliable source. Stampedes are classified based on type of events as religious, sports, entertainment, festival, political and others. Among all types of events, religious gatherings cause 64% of total fatalities and 51% injuries. The triggering factors are identified as rumours, fire, structural failure, narrow passage, overcrowding and others. Out of all the triggering factors mentioned above, narrow passage causes about 27% fatalities followed by overcrowding and rumours with 23 and 21% respectively. The majority of injuries caused by overcrowding turn out to be 35%. It is also observed that the frequency of stampede occurrences increasing since 1980. This study can be considered as an initial step in giving an overview of human stampedes, which would help to prepare a framework based on the past experiences. Further, it can give better insights for large-scale crowd management and to minimize the loss of human lives in future
Influence of Obstacles on the Use of the Danger Zone on Railway Platforms
Full text linkGrowing passenger numbers and the lack of space available led to research on pedestrians’ behaviour on railway platforms in Switzerland. By using stereo sensors, pedestrians’ tracks were collected on a platform in the train station of Bern. The analysis of pedestrians stepping into the danger zone showed clearly that obstacles have a large influence on the frequencies of pedestrians using the danger zone. By presenting four hypotheses the effect of obstacles on pedestrians’ use of the danger zone on train station platforms is investigated
The Modelling of Pedestrian Vehicle Interaction for Post-Exiting Behaviour
Full text linkDuring a major evacuation of high capacity buildings, such as a tower block or transportation hub, the emergency services will need to consider the safety of the people within the vicinity of the emergency. However, in general, when assessing the safety of a building for evacuation only the behaviour within the building is considered. One method of assessing this is to utilise a computer based simulation tool. This research outlines a number of developments required to simulate the impact of traffic on the evacuation process in an urban environment in relation to post-exiting behaviour. It uses a unique data set and model capabilities for representing pedestrian-vehicle interaction post-evacuation, which also considers the impact of time pressures on decision making. In addition, a number of software developments and pedestrian behaviours are identified for bridging the behavioural gaps when interfacing an emergency pedestrian model with a traffic simulation
An Artificial Neural Network Framework for Pedestrian Walking Behavior Modeling and Simulation
Full text linkMovement behavior models of pedestrian agents form the basis of computational crowd simulations. In contemporary research, a large number of models exist. However, there is still no walking behavior model that can address the various influence factors of movement behavior holistically. Thus, we endorse the use of artificial neural networks to develop walking behavior models because machine learning methods can integrate behavioral factors efficiently, automatically, and data-driven. In this paper, we support this approach by providing a framework that describes how to include artificial neural networks into a pedestrian research context. The framework comprises 5 phases: data, replay, training, simulation, and validation. Furthermore, we describe and discuss a prototype of the framework
The difference between individuals and social groups in multidirectional movement
Full text linkSocial groups exhibit some degree of social cohesion that is more than a simple collection or aggregation of individuals. The study on behaviours of social groups is essential to gain a deeper understanding on pedestrian dynamics. In this paper, the crowd movement among individuals and social groups are studied by performing a series of multidirectional pedestrian flow experiments under laboratory condition. Interestingly, we found that the speed of individual is not always higher than that of social groups. Pedestrians try to use different strategies to arrive their destination. With different strategies, their speed and movement time show different properties. These findings may provide basis for facility design and evacuation plan
Virtual Reality approaches for evacuation simulation of various disasters
Full text linkThis paper presents a virtual reality (VR) system of evacuation in the cases of various disasters. We considered a combination of disasters under realistic scenarios. Disaster simulations by numerical models were imported into the VR system to express a realistic situation. Not only disaster experts but also designers and non-professionals are able to share realistic experiences for escape from the disasters. This system is useful for performance-based design, planning of escape, disaster prevention, evacuation drill etc. The VR system consists of Building Information Modelling, physical simulation models for disasters and human behaviour’s simulation
Network Simulation for Pedestrian Flows with HyDEFS
Full text linkThe reliable simulation of pedestrian movement is an essential tool for the security aware design and analysis of buildings and infrastructure. We developed HyDEFS, an event-driven dynamic flow simulation software which is designed to simulate pedestrian movement depending on varying routing decisions of the individual users and varying constraints. HyDEFS uses given density depending velocities to model congestions and evaluates flow distributions with respect to average and maximum travel time. This is of particular importance when considering evacuation scenarios. We apply HyDEFS on two small networks and cross validate its results by time-discrete and time-continuous calculations
Analysis of distracted pedestrians’ waiting time: Head-Mounted Immersive Virtual Reality application
Full text linkThis paper analyzes the distracted pedestrians’ waiting time before crossing the road in three conditions: 1) not distracted, 2) distracted with a smartphone and 3) distracted with a smartphone in the presence of virtual flashing LED lights on the crosswalk as a safety measure. For the means of data collection, we adapted an in-house developed virtual immersive reality environment (VIRE). A total of 42 volunteers participated in the experiment. Participants’ positions and head movements were recorded and used to calculate walking speeds, acceleration and deceleration rates, surrogate safety measures, time spent playing smartphone game, etc. After a descriptive analysis on the data, the effects of these variables on pedestrians’ waiting time are analyzed by employing a cox proportional hazard model. Several factors were identified as having impact on waiting time. The results show that an increase in initial walk speed, percentage of time the head was oriented toward smartphone during crossing, bigger minimum missed gaps and unsafe crossings resulted in shorter waiting times. On the other hand, an increase in the percentage of time the head was oriented toward smartphone during waiting time, crossing time and maze solving time, means longer waiting times for participants
Experimental study on the evading behaviour of single pedestrians encountering an obstacle
Full text linkPresent simulation and experimental research still have deficiency in depicting the evading behaviour of single pedestrians confronting with an obstacle, which is the basis for the study of crowd dynamics affected by obstacles in real life. Therefore, this study will conduct experiments with a bar-shaped obstacle in the middle of a corridor and explore the corresponding general and particular features of single pedestrians. Particularly, the variation of pedestrian velocity and trajectory under different-sized obstacles will be illustrated. By taking the average velocity and trajectories of the 32 participants, it could be concluded that pedestrians would walk at a velocity of about 1.5 m/s without being affected by the size of obstacle. Besides, pedestrians tend to pass a location about 0.4 meters away from the obstacle edge that is perpendicular to walking direction. Furthermore, pedestrians tend to begin and finish evading the obstacle at locations respectively about 4.40 meters and 4.85 meters away from the obstacle. We also found a heterogeneity in the evading behaviour and pedestrians could be classified into four types accordingly. Results of this study are expected to provide reliable evidence for agent-based modelling in the future
Analysis of Built Environment Influence on Pedestrian route choice behavior in Dutch Design Week using GPS Data
Full text linkVisitors not only have specific destinations targeting the Dutch Design Week (DDW) exhibitions distributed all over the city, but also visit the city in between exhibition activities. The mixed environment makes modeling behavior of DDW visitors more complex than shoppers and tourisms only. This research pays special attention to the influence of built environment on pedestrian route choice. The built environment includes building and transportation infrastructure. GPS tracking data and social demographic information were collected during the event. Multinomial logit model and path size logit model are used to analysis route choice behavior. The results show that some built environment factors have significant influence on route choice. Shops are more attractive for aged visitors. Females prefer shorter routes more. In big event, the alternative routes with more sharing links could increase the possibility to choose