I think it's interesting that humans are usually thought of as very complex beings. But when evacuating, humans panic and their behavior can be modeled quite simply like how we model a flock of birds as particles. Their actions are determined by their local environment and they lack awareness on what goes on in a global setting.
eugenek07
I find it very interesting that crowd simulations can be utilized to monitor these bottlenecks in order to design buildings that help alleviate flow of traffic. Utilizing the same particle simulation models for fluids and granular materials. We also generally don't want to get too close with other people and so have applied forces of repulsion in addition to perhaps forces of attraction to destinations.
spegeerino
@jinwei I think of it more like the law of large numbers: individually, the reasoning that people are using to go in particular directions probably seem quite well-reasoned and complex, but they all end up producing similar results when the goal is roughly the same and, like you pointed out, people lack perfect information. The complicated inner behavior only has a couple of ways to be expressed, and so everything can be modelled well enough by a simpler simulation.
MillerHollinger
I've heard about using particle simulation for testing the safety of evacuation routes before. If I recall, the most important part of an evacuation route is the bottleneck, i.e. the area of the route that allows the fewest people through at once. A small bottleneck can cause serious harm to people as they escape -- that's why many emergency escape doors, especially in large buildings like malls, are double doors.
I think it's interesting that humans are usually thought of as very complex beings. But when evacuating, humans panic and their behavior can be modeled quite simply like how we model a flock of birds as particles. Their actions are determined by their local environment and they lack awareness on what goes on in a global setting.
I find it very interesting that crowd simulations can be utilized to monitor these bottlenecks in order to design buildings that help alleviate flow of traffic. Utilizing the same particle simulation models for fluids and granular materials. We also generally don't want to get too close with other people and so have applied forces of repulsion in addition to perhaps forces of attraction to destinations.
@jinwei I think of it more like the law of large numbers: individually, the reasoning that people are using to go in particular directions probably seem quite well-reasoned and complex, but they all end up producing similar results when the goal is roughly the same and, like you pointed out, people lack perfect information. The complicated inner behavior only has a couple of ways to be expressed, and so everything can be modelled well enough by a simpler simulation.
I've heard about using particle simulation for testing the safety of evacuation routes before. If I recall, the most important part of an evacuation route is the bottleneck, i.e. the area of the route that allows the fewest people through at once. A small bottleneck can cause serious harm to people as they escape -- that's why many emergency escape doors, especially in large buildings like malls, are double doors.