Agent-Based Models of Crowd Behaviuor

Agent-based modelling allows us to model individuals and how these individuals interact to form emergent phenomena. A great example of this is crowds. Recently we (people at CASA) have been exploring ways to carryout pedestrian agent-based models in 3D and I just came across this short presentation by Paul Torrens entitled “Modelling Crowd Behaviour” from the O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference. It is worth watching the talk (15min) as it shows how GIS and ABM can be coupled together and why studying crowd movement is important.

The talk can be watched here.

If you interested in pedestrian modelling and software the papers by Christian Castle might be of interest:

Castle, C.J.E. (2007), Guidelines for Assessing Pedestrian Evacuation Software Applications, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (University College London): Working Paper 115, London.

Castle, C.J.E. and Longley, P.A. (2008), 'Emergency Pedestrian Evacuation Analysis: A Review and Interpretation of Software Applications', in Sui, D.Z. and Cutter, S.L. (eds.), Geospatial Technologies and Homeland Security: Research Frontiers and Challenges, Springer, Berlin.