Pedestrian Behavior

Studies of pedestrian behaviour have gained attention in a variety of disciplines. Different technologies have been used to collect data about pedestrian movement patterns. This book aims to document these developments in research and modelling approaches. It includes modelling approaches such as cellular automata models and fluid dynamics.

Effective evacuations can save lives. This book provides mathematical models of pedestrian movements that can be used specifically for designing feedback control laws for effective evacuation. The book also provides various feedback control laws to accomplish the effective evacuation. It book uses the hydrodynamic hyperbolic PDE macroscopic pedestrian models since they are amenable to feedback control design. The control designs are obtained through different nonlinear techniques.

The 6th International Conference on Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics (PED2012) showcased research on human locomotion. This book presents the proceedings of PED2012. Humans have walked for eons; our drive to settle the globe began with a walk out of Africa. However, much remains to discover. As the world moves toward sustainability while racing to assess and accommodate climate change, research must provide insight on the physical requirements of walking, the dynamics of pedestrians on the move and more. We must understand, predict and simulate pedestrian behaviour, to avoid dangerous situations, to plan for emergencies, and not least, to make walking more attractive and enjoyable. PED2012 offered 70 presentations and keynote talks as well as 70 poster presentations covering new and improved mathematical models, describing new insights on pedestrian behaviour in normal and emergency cases and presenting research based on sensors and advanced observation methods. These papers offer a starting point for innovative new research, building a strong foundation for the next conference and for future research.

The international conference on "Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics", held on February 27-29, 2008 at Wuppertal University in Germany, was the fourth in this series after successful meetings in Duisburg (2001), Greenwich (2003) and Vienna (2005). The conference was aimed at improving the scientific exchange between scientists, experts and practitioners of various fields of pedestrian and evacuation dynamics and featured: the analysis of evacuation processes and pedestrian motion, modeling of pedestrian dynamics in various situations, experiments on pedestrian dynamics, human behavior research, regulatory action. All these topics are included in this book to give a broad and state-of-the-art overview of pedestrian and evacuation dynamics.

Due to an increasing number of reported catastrophes all over the world, the safety especially of pedestrians today, is a dramatically growing field of interest, both for practitioners as well as scientists from various disciplines. The questions arising mainly address the dynamics of evacuating people and possible optimisations of the process by changing the architecture and /or the procedure.