Modelling Goal-Oriented Pedestrian Behaviour

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Developing intelligent cities has become a major economic activity in the 21st century and an unprecedented number of people will live together in urban areas all over the globe. This represents incredible challenges in the field of transport. Rising urbanisation and mobility lead to busier transportation hubs, shopping malls and public spaces that need to be carefully designed and managed to cope with growing demand. This project will involve working on computer simulation models for pedestrian crowds that are currently revolutionising the industry. Pedestrian movement is self-organised, as individuals respond to the movement of others whilst walking. Built on mathematical representations of individual behaviour, simulation models are a versatile tool that promise to accurately predict the flow patterns observed in real crowds. The project will address a crucial open problem by developing a model for how individuals plan, review and execute their activities when navigating through any public space. The intended outcome of this project is a general model that can accept building configuration and individual objectives as inputs and accurately predict crowd behaviour under a variety of situations. These situations will include evacuations in the event of fires or other hazards, and times of high thoroughfare. There is also potential to develop and carry out real-world experiments to refine the model. This could be done by using lab-based trials with groups of volunteers in carefully designed environments. This will require suitable settings to conduct the experiments, advertising/canvasing for volunteers and possible incentives for participation. Another potential experimental framework is based around an 'educational video game' which could be distributed in public areas where volunteers complete objectives in the video game. Data would then be collected from participant decisions within the game and from their feedback. The game would require careful planning and designing to keep users interested while adhering to the needs of the project.