Crowd modelling: Game theory, implementation & validation

在过去的十年中，行人建模和模拟已经成为土木工程领域设计周期中的关键组成部分之一。事实上，火车站、机场、写字楼、医院甚至整个城市的最先进和复杂的开发涉及一项人流研究，旨在从未来使用者的角度评估空间的质量和可达性。这些研究由人流专家进行，如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更复杂的分析的需求迅速增长，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。有关Buro Happold工程智能空间团队的更多详细信息，请参阅http://www.burohappold.com/think-again/specialisms/smart-space/.Crowd安全和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。数字模型通常被用来改进公共场所的设计，如航站楼或人行道。然而，人们对人类在高度拥挤环境中的行走行为仍知之甚少，许多现有的将人类视为物理粒子的数值模型无法提供对行人行为的可靠和准确的描述。在这个项目中，我们建议改进行人流量的建模，从理论上和现实生活中的问题进行分析，实施它，并用实际数据进行验证。该项目的三个基本支柱是：-改进本地导航建模：实施和分析。-改进全球导航和规划建模：实施和分析。-使用真实数据进行验证。现有软件中针对行人的本地导航规则通常基于社会力模型或基于速度的模型，如中所示，我们将通过在这些社会力模型中纳入理性行为来改进这些规则，并通过基于优化人群中每个人的效用的模型完全改变这一范式。我们建议研究一个模型的层次结构，这些模型将人类视为理性主体，试图在移动的障碍物(其他行人)中优化他们的行走轨迹，以到达他们的目标。全局导航和规划是指将外部信号的影响包括在人群控制中，或者如何将观测到的密度的影响包括在个人的全局决策中。最优控制方法可以用来实现其中的一些想法，包括外部导航领域和/或包括更大空间尺度上的个人的理性行为。该博士项目的主要目标之一是开发、验证这些新的基于代理的模型，并将其实施到Buro Happold现有软件中，以提高其相关性和性能。所研究的模型的准确性将根据量化标准进行评估，例如人群中速度和密度之间的关系。作为第二个更具冒险精神和更有回报的阶段，学生的目标是改进已研究的模型，并设计一个新的行人动力学模型，它比上面提到的模型更准确、更有效。拟议的研究可能会对EPSRC战略中包括的安全和交通：交通运营和管理产生直接影响。

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.