Understanding physical distancing compliance behaviour using proximity and survey data: A case study in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic

Physical distancing has been an important asset in limiting the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to assess compliance with physical distancing and to evaluate the combination of observed and self-reported data used. This research shows that it is difficult to operationalize new rules, that context affects...

Game theoretical framework for bicycle operations: A multi-strategy framework

This paper presents a novel microscopic modelling framework for bicycle flow operations. The modelling principles are based on similar principles successfully applied in our previous work on pedestrian and vessel flow. The main contributions of the paper are in the extension towards modelling cyclists that has not been proposed in literature...

Data collection methods for studying pedestrian behaviour: A systematic review

Collecting pedestrian behaviour data is vital to understand pedestrian behaviour. This systematic review of 145 studies aims to determine the capability of contemporary data collection methods in collecting different pedestrian behavioural data, identify research gaps and discuss the possibilities of using new technologies to study pedestrian...

Trip chain complexity: a comparison among latent classes of daily mobility patterns

This paper studies the relationship between trip chain complexity and daily travel behaviour of travellers. While trip chain complexity is conventionally investigated between travel modes, our scope is the more aggregated level of a person’s activity-travel pattern. Using data from the Netherlands Mobility Panel, a latent class cluster...

Pedestrian exit choice behavior during an evacuation - a comparison study between field and VR experiment

Understanding pedestrian exit choice behavior during emergency situations is important for improving evacuation efficiency. Virtual Reality is a promising technique that can be used to study pedestrian evacuation behavior. However, studies comparing evacuation behavior in real and virtual environments are still scarce. This paper explores...

Monitoring the Number of Pedestrians in an Area: The Applicability of Counting Systems for Density State Estimation

Crowd monitoring systems are more and more used to support crowd management organizations. Currently, counting systems are often used to provide quantitative insights into the pedestrian traffic state, since they are fairly easy to install and the accuracy is reasonably good under normal conditions. However, there are no sensor systems that...

A Markov-chain activity-based model for pedestrians in office buildings

As the number of people working in office buildings increases, there is an urgent need to improve building services, such as lighting and temperature control, within these buildings to increase energy efficiency and well-being of occupants. A pedestrian behaviour model that simulates office occupants’ movements and locations can provide the high...

The influence of the interaction characteristics on the movement dynamics of pedestrians

One of the fundamental properties of pedestrian simulation models is their capability to predict the future movement dynamics of pedestrians depending on the current state of the pedestrian traffic flow, more specically the walking behaviour of neighbouring pedestrians. This paper investigates the influence of the interaction characteristics on...

Comparing three types of real-time data collection techniques: Counting cameras, Wi-Fi sensors and GPS trackers

Nowadays, many large scale events are organised in urban areas that are not designed to accomodate these large visitor flows, as not only the sheer number of people is larger than anticipated, but also their behaviour is different. For a timely deployment of crowd management measures, continuous information on the real-time traffic state on the...

Estimating travel times using Wi-Fi sensor data

Determining travel time information from Wi-Fi (or Bluetooth) sensors is not trivial due to various (often technical) reasons. In this contribution, we focus on the problem of distinguishing travel time from the time people spend performing activities (e.g. fuelling the car, standing still to watch the scenery, buying a train ticket). More...

Proposition and testing of a conceptual model describing the movement of individual pedestrians within a crowd

Our understanding of crowd movements has rapidly improved over the course of the last decades. This study shows that the empirical research has not kept up with the pace of the simulation studies. Based on an extensive literature review, this study proposes a conceptual model describing the movements of individuals within a crowd. The model...

The Many Roles of the Relaxation time Parameter in Force based Models of Pedestrian Dynamics

In force based models of pedestrian traffic, the relaxation time, ?, is related to the time it takes a pedestrian to adapt its motion to its preferences. An example of this is linear acceleration, but ? is also connected to how the agent adjusts to spatial variations in its preferred velocity, and affects evasive maneuvers. These many roles of ?...

Influence of Group Size and Group Composition on the Adhered Distance Headway

Research into the influence of groups on pedestrian flow dynamics has been limited. Previous research found that group size influences the walking velocity of pedestrians within the group and as such the capacity the pedestrian infrastructure. This paper's aim is to provide quantitative insights into the influence of group size and composition...

Anticipation Behavior Upstream of a Bottleneck

Whether pedestrian movements do or do not follow similar patterns as vehicular traffic while experiencing congestion is not entirely understood. Using data gathered during bottleneck experiments under laboratory conditions, the phenomenon of anticipation before entering congestion is studied. This paper provides proof that the movement behavior...

Optimal crowd evacuation

This paper deals with the optimal allocation of routes, destination, and departure times to members of a crowd, for instance in case of an evacuation or another hazardous situation in which the people need to leave the area as quickly as possible. The generic approach minimizes the evacuation times, considering the demand dependent waiting times...

Crowd movements during exceptional events