Large scale music festivals have large crowds, especially at the major shows at the stage areas. It is important that appropriate crowd safety measures are taken and an efficient in- and outflow improves the user experience. At music festivals both the crowd safety and the visitor experience benefit from infrastructural layouts which limit the delay visitors experience when accessing the stage area. Little guidance is available for festival grounds design and no simulation methods are available to assist festival grounds design. This study proposes a commercially available microscopic agent-based model for both ingress and egress scenarios to determine how these kinds of models can be used in infrastructural design. This study starts with a structured literature review about crowd dynamics on festival grounds and then introduces the case study of Defqon.1. The case study and the literature are used to formulate requirements for commercially available microscopic models. Different models are compared using experiments to test for these requirements. A model
is created and the model is then calibrated using extensive data from the case study, structured with an iterative calibration cycle. For the model selection, Crowd:it, MassMotion, Pedestrian Dynamics, Vadere and Viswalk are compared. Vadere and Viswalk are excluded, respectively due to long runtimes and to limited license availability. After the five comparison experiments, the Social Force Model MassMotion is found to be the best suited for this setting due to its computational efficiency, ability to handle stationary agents and realistic pedestrian behaviour. A model is formulated with two experiments: one for the ingress and one for the egress. The model uses a fixed arrival function and a fixed start of egress function. A novel grid cell structure is introduced which divides the stage area into different cells to be able to control the spread of agents over the stage area. Each cell is given a value which consists of two parts: static and dynamic values. The static values are mapped based on the line
of sight, the distance from the stage, the bar adjacency and the remaining ingress effect. The dynamic values are based on the travel time and the density within a grid cell, where the last one is used to limit the inflow into a cell which exceeds its average density. From the calibration, a difference between the ingress and egress mean free flow speed is found. During ingress visitors walk slower compared to egress. Additionally, a decrease in the crowd density between the start of the show and the end of the show is found due
to the crowd spreading out. The model as proposed in this study overestimates the KPIs of the model but is able to show the dynamics of the stage area well, so it can be used for comparing different infrastructural layouts. The model can predict bottlenecks caused by everyone taking the most direct route to their destination, but not other bottlenecks. The calibration has been limited by the available time, but structural problems are identified. Based on the model
it is concluded that better stationary agent behaviour and local dynamic path planning are required to be able to simulate the ingress and egress of stage areas at large scale outdoor music festivals. ... Read more

Providing access to daily opportunities (i.e. work, school, employment locations, supermarkets, or parks) through sustainable transport modes is an increasingly prominent goal in transport planning. To support this goal, transport planners require accurate accessibility measures to improve how easily people can reach daily opportunities using only sustainable transport modes in their neighbourhood. However, existing accessibility measures are often either too complex for practical application or too simplified to capture sustainable accessibility to daily opportunities. This thesis addresses this gap by proposing and testing a transparent and decomposable GIS-based method to measure sustainable accessibility at the neighbourhood level in the Netherlands.

Sustainable accessibility is defined in this research as the extent to which people can reach daily opportunities within acceptable travel times by walking, cycling, and multimodal combinations of these active modes with public transport. To operationalize this concept, a Sustainable Accessibility Index (SAI) is developed. This composite index combines the number of reachable opportunities, the reachability of those opportunities within acceptable travel times, and the sufficiency of the reachable opportunities for daily life. The index is calculated from multiple origin points within each neighbourhood and aggregated into a neighbourhood-level sustainable accessibility (SA) score. This makes it possible to calculate an overall neighbourhood SA score, while also being able to decompose this score into underlying layers. These specific layer SA scores could help show whether low accessibility in the neighbourhood is related to longer travel times, too few reachable opportunities, weak access to specific opportunities, or spatial inequalities within a neighbourhood.

The method is applied to nine neighbourhoods in the Netherlands across different degrees of urbanisation. The results show that sustainable accessibility is generally higher in more urbanised neighbourhoods, but accessibility differences are not only explained by urbanisation. Local opportunity distribution, transport network systems, mode-specific travel times, and origin locations within neighbourhoods also influence the SA scores. Additionally, the results show that the multimodal transport combinations of walking and cycling combined with public transport tend to extend access beyond the immediate neighbourhood. However, in highly- and moderate urbanised neighbourhoods, cycling can outperform the multimodal combination. This suggests that public transport adds the most value in neighbourhoods where walking or cycling alone does not provide sufficient access to daily opportunities. Furthermore, the decomposed results show that neighbourhood averages can hide substantial differences in sustainable accessibility within a neighbourhood. Lastly, the sensitivity analysis indicates that the main spatial and modal patterns are generally stable but exact SA scores and interpretations depend on methodological choices such as travel-time thresholds, the way opportunities are counted, and aggregation rules of the SAI.

The main value of the SAI is that it makes sustainable accessibility visible, measurable, and explainable. The resulting index could help transport planners identify what kind of accessibility problem exists and select targeted intervention to improve everyday sustainable accessibility. ... Read more

This study investigates the factors influencing passenger distribution on railway platforms in the Netherlands, using Eindhoven Central Station as a case study. The objective is to quantify how spatial characteristics, environmental conditions, and human behavioral factors jointly shape passenger distribution and to derive actionable recommendations for platform design and management.
A combination of descriptive statistics, spatial analysis, and discrete choice modeling was applied to a high-resolution dataset comprising 142,256 sensor-based observations collected under 49 situational scenarios. The platform was discretized into spatial cells characterized by distance to entrances, information boards, and the track edge, proximity to seating, leaning areas and kiosks, passenger density, lighting conditions, and weather.
Descriptive analyses reveal systematic clustering near entrances and comfort-related facilities, confirming the central role of accessibility and physical support in waiting behavior. Passengers generally avoid track-adjacent areas, while moderate social clustering occurs at intermediate densities. Environmental conditions further influence spatial patterns, with adverse weather and poor lighting reinforcing concentration in sheltered zones.
A multinomial logit model identifies nine statistically significant determinants of waiting location choice. Seating exhibits the strongest positive effect, followed by entrance proximity and leaning facilities, highlighting comfort and accessibility as primary drivers. Safety considerations reduce the attractiveness of areas near the track, although this effect weakens under favorable lighting and weather conditions. Areas near kiosks and information boards are avoided, indicating the disutility associated with congestion and circulation conflicts. The model demonstrates strong predictive performance and reproduces observed passenger distributions with high accuracy.
The findings show that platform waiting behavior reflects structured trade-offs between comfort, safety, accessibility, congestion avoidance, social context, and environmental conditions. Based on these results, design recommendations are proposed, including redistributing seating and leaning facilities, dispersing entrance flows, relocating kiosks and information boards toward circulation corridors, applying adaptive lighting strategies, and maintaining clear safety buffers near the track edge. The study provides a behavioral and empirical foundation for improving comfort, safety, and operational efficiency at Dutch railway stations. ... Read more

This research explores how shared bicycles can enhance the modal shift from cars to public transport for commuter trips in suburban areas, focusing on South Holland. The study combines a literature review with a survey, comprising revealed and stated preference components, to assess travel behaviour and quantify the effects of shared bicycle attributes. A multinomial logit model is applied to estimate behavioural responses, with 105 respondents commuting to Drechtsteden and Leiden as case studies.

Results underline the critical role of competitive public transport travel times in fostering shared bicycle adoption. In areas where public transport significantly lags behind cars in travel time, the potential for shared bicycles is diminished. Shared bicycles are most effective for last-mile distances between 500 and 3,000 metres, but availability issues and reliance on private bicycles limit their adoption. Cost measures, including employer subsidies and reduced shared bicycle fees, significantly encourage uptake, while car parking charges predominantly shift commuters to public transport. A combination of free shared bicycles and paid parking achieves a potential modal shift of 10 percentage points, though inclusivity remains essential.

The stated preference model reveals that shared bicycle costs are perceived as three times more negative than travel time, particularly among younger and low-income travellers. Women and lower-educated individuals are more sensitive to public transport travel times, while frequent car users show less aversion to longer car journeys. Furthermore, hybrid systems such as Donkey Republic meet the needs of frequent commuters, while e-bikes provide limited added value in suburban areas due to car dominance over longer distances.

This study concludes that optimising public transport competitiveness, improving shared bicycle availability, and introducing cost incentives are vital for achieving a sustainable modal shift. Recommendations include integrating shared bicycles into public transport cards, reallocating bicycle parking, and enhancing hub locations to strengthen the synergy between shared bicycles and public transport. ... Read more

The Netherlands is confronted with challenges such as traffic congestion, overburdened public transportation, and obesity. These issues could potentially be mitigated by elevating the cycling modal share. To attain this objective, the Dutch central government has introduced a range of strategies aimed at fostering commuter cycling. This study examines one of these strategies, namely financial schemes encompassing the kilometre allowance, lease bike, and 'Fietsplan'. The financial schemes are analysed by creating an extensive conceptual model which is thereafter used to make a comprehensive Social Cost-Benefit Analysis (SCBA). Using both methods contributes to improving the SCBA technique for cycling policies by presenting a well-rounded and extensive assessment of the associated costs and benefits. The results of the SCBA show that the lease bike scheme is the most socio-economically favourable financial scheme. The validity and reliability of the results could be improved by researching the elasticity of the kilometre allowance in relation to the number of additional cycling kilometres, the percentage switcher by different heights of the kilometre allowance and to determine the willingness to pay of individuals for a bicycle to better determine the consumer surplus of the 'Fietsplan'. ... Read more

In crowded pedestrian environments, individuals often resort to rotating their bodies as a strategy to avoid collisions. Surprisingly, this rotational behavior, despite its significant implications for crowd capacity, has received relatively little attention in research. This study seeks to fill this gap by diving into the complicated world of pedestrian rotation behavior, particularly in the context of high-density bidirectional and crossing flows.
Drawing upon data gathered from the CrowdLimits experiments, we start the exploration of how various factors impact the rotation behavior of pedestrians. Our investigation covers crowd density, the fundamental movement scenarios (bidirectional and crossing flows), flow ratio, and the influence of disturbances within the crowd under different scenarios.
Our key findings reveal that all these factors play a role in shaping the frequency of rotations within a crowd. However, the extent and precise conditions under which these factors influence this subject demand further in-depth research and exploration.
In essence, this study addresses the fundamental question: How does shoulder rotation behavior vary concerning macroscopic crowd characteristics, including crowd density, flow ratio, and movement patterns like bidirectional and crossing flows? Through this research, we hope to highlight the complex interplay between these factors and the rotational strategies operated by pedestrians, ultimately enhancing our understanding of crowd dynamics. ... Read more

COVID-19 has had a great impact worldwide. One of its many effects was that offices had to be closed, which negatively affects the economy and people’s mental health. It is important that a safe way to keep offices open is found. Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) are an important way to do this. However, to pick the right NPIs for one’s office, knowledge is needed of the effects of the different NPIs within the given context. As of now, there are not many models that can provide a detailed estimation of COVID-19 spread and quantify the impact of NPIs in office spaces.
Therefore the existing model of the PedestrianDynamics - Virus Spread (PeDViS) of Duives et al. (2022) is chosen as the base model to be extended into a model that allows the comparison of the effects of NPIs in an office space.
The NPIs of which the effects are explored in this research are:
• All employees wear a mask while walking
• Increasing the rate of cleaning
• Increasing the ventilation rate from standard rate to the rate advised by government officials
• Allowing only 50 % of the employees to come into the office
• Allowing a maximum number of people in the meeting rooms, equal to 50 % of the capacity of the meeting rooms

A sensitivity analysis has been performed to learn more about the impact of some of the variables related to the meetings held in the office. Both the size and frequency of meetings were found to have some influence on the number of infections.
Next, policy analysis has been performed to learn more about the effectiveness of the NPIs, both individually and combined into policies. This led to conclusions on how large and consistent the effect of each of the NPIs was in reducing the number of infections in office contexts. The results also provided information on under what circumstances NPI could best be implemented and what NPI policies are recommended to be implemented to adhere to different levels of safety. Also, various limitations of this research were identified and recommendations for future work were given for part of them. The most important recommendations for future work are:
• Extending the model to include shared workspaces and the activity of having lunch.
•Testing the impact of more aspects relating to activity scheduling
•Gather data on people’s behaviour when the number of days they can come to the office is limited, to learn more about the inconsistent effect of this NPI.
•Test the impact of the NPIs in a context in which the initial infection risk is low.
... Read more

The rapid development of Dutch DC’s near airports pressures the environment. VGS are considered a promising measure toward a more nature-inclusive development of Dutch distribution centers. However, an integral quantitative impact assessment model is needed to retrieve funding and facilitate an evidence-based decision-making process for the implementation of VGS. This research therefore aims to develop a multi-criteria decision model to assess the impact of VGS in Dutch DC’s near airports to enhance the decision-making process for the implementation of VGS. The main research question was formulated as follows: ‘How can a MCDM tool on the quantitative performance of VGS in delivering ecosystem services be developed and applied, in order to facilitate the impact assessment and evidence-based decision-making in the context of Dutch DC’s near airports?’
The research question was answered through a mixed-methods approach including literature research and expert interviews. A case study was used to apply and validate the MCDM model. VGS were found to offer a range of supporting, regulating, provisioning and cultural ecosystem services. The performance of VGS in delivering these services was mainly determined by the plants, substrate and support system. In general, living walls have a higher performance than green façades, among which modular living walls perform best. However, context-specific valuation was considered key. Evaluating VGS on the interaction effects between the main system components and the ecosystem services is an effective approach for developing a MCDM model that enhances decision-making and creates support base for implementation. A context-specific impact assessment can be achieved by weighing the relevance of the ecosystem services. Further research that compares the impact of distinct types of VGS is needed to further develop and validate the model, specifically with regard to grey water treatment, education, and wellbeing. ... Read more

Crowd management is a crucial element in keeping situations safe. Models can help understand in-event crowd management system more thoroughly, and illustrate potential effects of measures before they have to be implemented in real life. However, applications of crowd models for operational support on in-event crowd management are sparse. Two main reasons are the cause of this: (1) inherent uncertainty regarding crowd modelling; and (2) computational requirements regarding large-scale applications. This research proposed three methodological steps for model-based experimentation—exploration, selection, and evaluation—to overcome current challenges in the application of crowd models. These steps were then applied on a case study of operational in-event crowd management at the Grote Markt, in the city of Breda. The research question thereby was: “What effect do the in-event crowd management measures—traffic regulators, directional guidance, and object placement—have on the density and walking speed of pedestrians in the Grote Markt, Breda?”. To answers this question, this study: (1) constructed a detailed microscopic crowd model of the Grote Markt, utilizing open-source crowd simulation framework Vadere for rapid, yet sophisticated, development of an agent-based model; and (2) applied this model according to the proposed steps for model-based experimentation, using techniques from the field of exploratory modelling and analysis. A connector between Vadere and the Python based Exploratory Modelling and Analysis (EMA) Workbench was constructed to synergize these two steps. Main findings highlight the potential of the proposed traffic regulator measure, and its effectiveness compared to object placement and directional guidance. With the proposal of the methodological steps, this work provides the needed stepping stone for operational support on crowd management. One that utilizes crowd models to understand in-event crowd management systems, and thereby enables the comparison between different in-event measures before they have to be implemented in real life. ... Read more

Over the last decade, summer recreation in urban green-blue open spaces has become increasingly popular in Amsterdam, but so has the amount of reported nuisance because of summer recreation. In this thesis, the nuisance that has been reported by citizens during the summer recreation season from 2020 has been analysed by coding the reports in Atlas.TI, and using a survey from the Muncipality of Amsterdam as a verification. There are two locations where large amounts of nuisance reports have been filed, the Bogortuin and Park Somerlust, and several smaller locations with quay walls in the Oostelijk Havengebied and on the Amstel river. The content on the individual nuisance experience in the reports has been separated in observations, providing the nuisance causes, and evaluations, providing the nuisance impact. Recreation in it self is not problematic per se, but the presence of large groups of youngsters and recreation during the evening hours and at night is. This impacts local residents because of noise nuisance, especially at night, and pollution of waste and public urination. The character of summer recreation nuisance can be classified as both physical and social nuisance that is experienced during the evening hours, on weekend days and when it’s dry and warm. Implemented interventions have been evaluated and together with proposed interventions been analysed with the prevention pyramid. The measures that deal with the physical nuisance, temporary public toilets and an increase of waste capacity are in general reviewed positively. One successful intervention on social nuisance is the anchoring ban with a buoy line in the water to prevent noise nuisance from boats. None of the measures has been designed in an integrated way, using all the levels of the pyramid.   ... Read more

Predicting crowd movements in real-time during mass events has been shown to be a complex yet valuable task in order to reduce the risk of overcrowding. The aim of this research is to propose and validate a crowd movement forecasting method for which simulation is performed offline (i.e. prior to the event) but the forecast is done online, in real-time. A number of scenarios is formulated and simulated creating what is called a database of scenarios. In real-time, based on information from the event's crowd monitoring systems, a scenario from this database is then selected which corresponds to the prediction. The research is focused on addressing the concepts related to the two pillars of the method: the formulation of the scenarios to be included in the database, and the operationalization of the system to select a scenario in real-time. ... Read more

Route choice of cyclists recently became a hot topic of research for different disciplines such as transport and urban planning. Among other factors that influence these route choices, the urban environment has been identified as one in a network, road or aesthetic level. However, how the morphology of the built environment influences the cyclists remains rather unexplored. Considering that two routes are equally distant and safe, would a cyclist choose the most idyllic route in terms of its spatial openness? This thesis aims to explore the extent that the visible views of the urban environment affect the route choosing of a cyclist while traveling in the center of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It also For this purpose, 127 GPS trajectories of the Fietstelweek dataset of 2015 are compared with alternative routes suggested by OpenStreetMap (OSM) via the OpenRouteService Directions API. The suggested alternatives can be either the fastest routes, the longest routes or those recommended by OSM (in terms of travel distance, travel time or safety. Throughout this MSc thesis a methodology based on the visibility of the cyclistis proposed. The visibility analysisis based on the ray casting algorithm in a 3D environment and gives as an output 3D isovists. The 3D isovists are used in order to measure the spatial openness as the ratio of the amount of visible sky, visible buildings and visible ground, as well as the shape of the 3D isovist itself. Opposite to similar researches that are performing the visibility analysis on the actual GPS routes, this thesis project applies the visibility analysis to a simplified version of the OSM street network in the centre of Amsterdam. The simplified OSM street network consists of street segments, the nodes of which represent real road intersections. The output of the visibility analysis per street segment is later mapped to the GPS trajectories and the alternative routes as an aggregated value. Finally, the routes are compared to each other with the ANOVA statistical method (N=127) and the Tukey’s post hoc test, resulting to a quantification of the differences of the GPS routes in terms of spatial openness. The results of the statistical analysis indicate the importance of the distance in the cyclists route choices but also the importance of the ratio of buildings and visible sky, the ratio of buildings and ground as well as a significant preference of the cyclists towards non-homogeneous routes with variation on the street profiles. We consider the methodology as an interesting proposal of measuring attributes that are difficult to be interpreted by using the traditional space syntax methodology and as a new way to provide design guidelines of the city to urban planners and architects when a detailed 3D environment is provided. ... Read more

As an increasing number of people work in office buildings and new sophisticated sensor technologies become available there is, both, a need and potential, to develop more complex building service controls that increase the energy efficiency of buildings as well as the well-being of employees. The data required for the testing and evaluation of such control systems is usually in the form of movements and locations of office building occupants collected over long periods of time. However, such data is generally difficult to obtain for reasons ranging from the need to evaluate un-commissioned buildings to privacy concerns related to data sharing. Therefore, this study develops a pedestrian behaviour model that can simulate office occupants’ movements and locations thereby acting as a research platform that produces data for external applications. The model is integrated as it simulates not only the movements of occupants between different locations in the building but also decisions that drive the movements such as which activities occupants want to carry out throughout the day, and when and where they want to perform these activities. Furthermore, the model is based on the guidelines of (i) flexibility – the model is able to simulate movements in different building plans and represent movement patterns of different organizations; (ii) extensibility – the model uses a modular framework that enables easy adoption of more complex components and integration with other workplace related studies as and when required; and (iii) data parsimony – the model has low and simple data requirements itself. ... Read more