Can Walking Behavior be Predicted?: Analysis of Calibration and Fit of Pedestrian Models

Abstract

Several models for simulation of pedestrian movement have been proposed in recent decades. These models are primarily used in the planning and evaluation of large pedestrian infrastructures, such as transportation hubs, with a focus to increase comfort and safety for pedestrians. Although the number of proposed simulation models is increasing at a fast pace, not much is known about the properties of calibration procedures or the transferability of the models estimated in one setting to other settings. This paper compares three calibration methods for a slightly adapted social force model. The main emphasis lies in the characteristics of the data-generation process and the information contained in the data sets. The sensitivity of the model parameters of the calibrated model were investigated, and the transferability of the model to different scenarios was tested. Results revealed that the quality of the data had a strong effect on the suitability of different calibration strategies and that the information content in the scene under investigation limited the transferability of the results to other scenarios. These results suggest that several data sets with different characteristics do not need to be included in the calibration process to achieve a model that performs well in a wider variety of settings.

Kinects and human kinetics: A new approach for studying pedestrian behavior

“…Model C: The third model is an implementation of Rudloff et al (2011) in which the repulsive force is split into one force directed in the opposite of the walking direction, i.e. the deceleration force, and another one perpendicular to it, i.e.…”

Static force field representation of environments based on agents’ nonlinear motions

“…In order to model the way by which moving agents arrive in attractive areas, it is considered a parametric function that describes their velocities depending on the distance r to a center of force. The proposed model is based on a top speed from which the agent continuously experiments a deceleration according to a function inspired by the repulsive terms offered by [22,25] and the deceleration factor described on [26].…”

“…The methodology proposed by the authors is based on social force models, a concept originally introduced by [23]. In a recent work, Seer et al [24] extend the work of Helbing by using three different shapes of social forces models, namely radial [22], elliptical [25] and a split version of forces [26]. The work of Seer is evaluated on real pedestrian trajectories.…”

Simulation of pedestrian flow with evading and surpassing behavior in a walking passageway

“…Meanwhile, some researchers chose to remove the friction effect among pedestrians to describe pedestrian movement in normal conditions. 25,26 Considering the problems in the original SFM, this research aims to give detailed description of the mechanism of obstacle-avoiding behavior in normal conditions. It is often observed that some obstacles obstruct the movement of pedestrian flows in real walking facilities.…”