Statistical Physics Seminar | March 09, 11:00

Measurement and numerical modeling of pedestrian flows

Claudio Feliciani

In the recent years, a growing interest on pedestrian traffic has led to a better knowledge on the movement of large crowds inside public facilities such as transportation hubs and recreational halls. However, there are still many aspects which are unknown and, especially when psychological aspects arise, managing and controlling large crowds is a challenging task. In this talk, classical methods to analyze and measure pedestrian crowds will be introduced and discussed. We will start with the bidirectional flow (for example people moving in a corridor), which, although rather simple, presents most of the characteristics of pedestrian dynamics, in particular regarding the presence of collision avoidance and emergent phenomena (in the form of lanes). Later the discussion will be extended to more complex cases, with the chaotic motion being the least organized. In the presentation a focus will be set on methods to analyze the level of congestion and the intrinsic risk of human crowds by also discussing methods to simulate pedestrian behavior with the aim of predicting future changes. Novel techniques (for example the use of inertial data from portable devices) will be presented showing advantages and limitations compared to classical approaches typically taken for pedestrian traffic and more generally for transportation systems.


The University of Tokyo, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology
Seminarraum Theorie Altbau
Contact: Andreas Schadschneider