Crowd Modeling and Simulation for Safer Building Design

Abstract

Crowd modeling and simulation are very important in the investigation and study of the dynamics of a crowd. They can be used not only to understand the behavior of a crowd in different environments, but also in risk assessment of spaces and in designing spaces that are safer for crowds, especially during emergency evacuations. This paper provides an overview of the use of the crowd simulation model for three main purposes; (1) as a modeling tool to simulate behavior of a crowd in different environments, (2) as a risk assessment tool to assess the risk posed in the environment, and (3) as an optimization tool to optimize the design of a building or space so as to ensure safer crowd movement and evacuation. Result shows that a simulation using the magnetic force model with a pathfinding feature provides a realistic crowd simulation and the use of ABC optimization can reduce evacuation time and improve evacuation comfort. This paper is expected to provide readers with a clearer idea on how crowd models are used in ensuring safer building planning and design.

Toward cognitive digital twins using a BIM-GIS asset management system for a diffused university

“…As Naticchia et al (2019) state, users can be described as a significant causality source due to their extreme unpredictability, especially in variable and complex systems with crowded spaces, requiring quick and prompt reactions to unpredictable changes, with the aim of automatize the responses (e.g., fire emergency, pandemic scenarios, floods, and earthquakes). One of the most interesting applications unlocked by DTs consists in the ability to manage emergencies, which means complex scenarios due to their rapid evolution and variability (Naticchia et al, 2019;Selamat et al, 2020;Fan et al, 2021). Particularly, in smart cities and smart campuses, where the presence of a large number of users carrying out various activities requires crowd management, DTs can enhance quick decision-making and crowd coordination through active wayfinding or alerting systems.…”

“…A crowd can be defined as a collection of individuals present in a common environment while usually sharing common goals with complex behavior influenced by several exogenous and endogenous variables (Selamat et al, 2020). Generally, crowds do not pose any serious issues; nevertheless, injury and fatalities have sometimes been caused by inadequate escape routes and poor crowd management (Fruin, 1993).…”

“…Generally, crowds do not pose any serious issues; nevertheless, injury and fatalities have sometimes been caused by inadequate escape routes and poor crowd management (Fruin, 1993). Selamat et al (2020) identify crowd behaviors and space design as the two major causes of crowd disasters or accidents during emergencies. Among crowd behavior, panic is identified as a major reason for life loss in crowded environments (Liu and Lo, 2011).…”

“…In the literature, two main traditional approaches can be found aiming at assessing building safety effectiveness, which are evacuation tests (Chu et al, 2014) or compliance with prescriptive fire emergency building codes (Sagun et al, 2008). The former can be impractical, time and cost consuming (Kobes et al, 2010), and dangerous when huge crowds are involved (Selamat et al, 2020). In addition, during evacuation tests, evacuees tend to underestimate its importance, reducing its usefulness and preventing a decision-making process due to panic behavior (Almeida et al, 2013).…”

“…It can be stated that the simulation approach acts only on the building design variable, analyzing and aiming at optimizing it, rather than actively intervening in crowd behavior. This represents one of the two major causes of crowd accidents during emergency situations, along with the building design variables (Selamat et al, 2020).…”