Crowd modelling: Game theory, implementation & validation

在过去的十年中，行人建模和仿真已经成为土木工程领域设计周期的关键组成部分之一。事实上，火车站、机场、办公楼、医院甚至整个城市的最先进和最复杂的开发都涉及到一项人员流动研究，旨在从未来用户的角度评估空间的质量和可达性。这些研究是由人员流动专家进行的，例如来自Buro Happold Engineering的Smartspace团队，行人模拟是设计过程中的关键工具。尽管对更具挑战性和复杂分析的需求快速增长，但最先进的行人模拟软件在计算速度和与现实世界的一致性方面面临着巨大的限制。Buro Happold开发了自己的行人模拟软件，该软件依赖于基于代理的模型，其中行人被建模为单个粒子。如欲了解更多有关Buro Happold工程智能空间团队的详情，请参阅http://www.burohappold.com/think-again/specialisms/smart-space/.Crowd安全与人群管理是我们城市社会的重要事项。为了提高人群安全和管理程序的效率，需要可靠的数值模型。数值模型通常用于改善公共场所的设计，如终点站或人行道。然而，人类在高度拥挤环境中的行走行为仍然知之甚少，许多现有的数值模型将人类视为物理粒子，无法提供可靠和准确的行人行为描述。在这个项目中，我们建议改进行人流的建模，从理论上和现实生活中分析这个问题，实施它并根据实际数据进行验证。该项目的三个基本支柱是：-改进本地导航建模：实施和分析。-全球导航和规划建模的改进：实施和分析。-实际数据验证。现有行人软件中的局部导航规则通常是基于社会力量模型或基于速度的模型，我们将通过在这些社会力量模型中纳入理性行为，并通过基于优化人群中每个人的效用的模型完全改变这种范式来改进这些模型。我们建议研究一个层次模型，该模型将人类视为理性的代理人，试图优化他们在移动障碍物（其他行人）之间的行走轨迹以到达目标。全局导航和规划是指在对人群的控制中考虑到外部信号的影响，或者如何在个体的全局决策中考虑到观测到的密度的影响。最优控制方法可以用来实现这些想法中的一些，包括外部导航领域和/或包括个人在更大的空间尺度上的理性行为。该博士项目的主要目标之一是开发、验证并将这些新的基于代理的模型应用到Buro Happold现有软件中，以提高其相关性和性能。所研究模型的准确性将根据定量标准进行评估，例如人群中速度和密度之间的关系。作为第二阶段，也是更具冒险性和回报性的阶段，学生将致力于改进所研究的模型，设计出比上述模型更准确、更高效的新的行人动态模型。提出的研究可能对EPSRC战略中包括的安全和运输产生直接影响：运输运营和管理。

During the last decade, pedestrian modelling and simulation has become one of the key component of the design cycle in the civil engineering sector. Indeed, the most advanced and complex developments of train stations, airports, office buildings, hospitals or even entire cities involve a people flow study that aim to assess the quality and accessibility of the space from the point of view of its future users. These studies are performed by people flow experts such as the Smartspace team from Buro Happold Engineering and pedestrian simulation represents a key tool of the design process. Despite the fast growing need for always more challenging and complex analysis, state of the art pedestrian simulation software face crying limitations in terms of computational speed and agreement with the real-world. Buro Happold develops its own pedestrian simulation software that relies upon agent based models where pedestrians are modelled as individual particles. For more details about Buro Happold Engineering Smart Space Team, see http://www.burohappold.com/think-again/specialisms/smart-space/.Crowd safety and crowd management are important matters in our urban societies. To improve the efficiency of crowd safety and management procedures, reliable numerical models are needed. Numerical models are routinely used to improve the design of public places, such as terminals or walkways. However, the walking behavior of humans in highly crowded environment is still very poorly understood and many existing numerical models, which treat humans like physical particles, fail to provide a reliable and accurate account of pedestrian behavior. In this project, we propose to improve the modelling of pedestrian flows, analyse this theoretically and in real life problems, implementing it and validating against real data. The three basic pillars of the project are:- Improvements in Local Navigation modelling: Implementation and Analysis.- Improvements in Global navigation and planning modelling: Implementation and Analysis.- Validation with real data.Local navigation rules in the existing software for pedestrians are typically based on social force models or velocity-based model as in , we will improve these by incorporating rational behaviour in these social force models and by changing completely this paradigm with models based on optimizing the utility for each individual in the crowd. We propose to investigate a hierarchy of models which treat humans as rational agents who try to optimize their walking trajectory among moving obstacles (the other pedestrians) to reach their target. Global navigation and planning refer to the fact of including the effect of external signals in the control of a crowd or how to include the effect of the observed density in the global decision making of an individual. Optimal control approaches can be used to implement some of these ideas both to include external navigation fields and/or include rational behaviour of the individuals at larger spatial scales.One of main aims of this PhD project is to develop, validate and implement these new agent based models into Buro Happold existing software with the objective to improve its relevance and performance. The accuracy of the studied models will be assessed against quantitative criteria such as the relationship between the speed and density in a crowd. As a second and more adventurous and rewarding stage, the student would aim to improve upon the studied models and design a new pedestrian dynamic model that is both, more accurate and more efficient than the ones mentioned above.The research proposed may have direct impact in security and transport included in the EPSRC strategy: Transportation operations and management.