Together Apart: Increased Crowd Heterogeneity Influences Crowd Dynamics and Interpersonal Distance at Bottlenecks

Despite considerable research efforts, most controlled empirical studies on crowd movement usually rely on homogeneous crowds, i.e., research participants are typically young adults without disabilities. Consequently, little is known about pedestrian movement in more diverse and heterogeneous crowd conditions, e.g., when persons with reduced mobility are present. This gap may be particularly relevant at bottlenecks, along the path of a moving crowd that limit the capacity of pedestrian flow. Here, we present results from 12 studies in which participants (total N = 252) with and without visible disabilities moved together in a crowd. In each study, groups of participants walked together in a hallway with a bottleneck at the end. The point of speed adoption, distances between neighbours, and behavioural activities were analysed. We found (1) that participants with disabilities reduced their speed further away from the bottleneck than participants without disabilities; (2) participants without disabilities stayed closer to neighbors with disabilities than to neighbors without disabilities; and (3) participants interacted and communicated with each other to organise in front of the bottleneck. These results underline the importance of studying representative and heterogeneous samples in crowd dynamics. We also argue that more interdisciplinary research is needed to better understand the dynamics of interactions between neighbors in a crowd. A more nuanced understanding of pedestrian dynamics holds the promise of improving the validity of simulation tools such as movement and evacuation models.

Crowd Motion Editing Based on Mesh Deformation

Computer simulation is a significant technology on making great scenes of crowd in the film industry. However, current animation making process of crowd motion requires large manual operations which are time-consuming and inconvenient. To solve the above problem, this paper presents an editing method on the basis of mesh deformation that can rapidly and intuitively edit crowd movement trajectories from the perspective of time and space. The method is applied to directly generate and adjust the crowd movement as well as avoid the crash between crowd and obstacles. As for collisions within the crowd that come along with path modification problem, a time-based solution is put forward to avoid this situation by retaining relative positions of individuals. Moreover, an experiment based on a real venue was performed and the result indicates that the proposed method can not only simplify the editing operations but also improve the efficiency of crowd motion editing.

ODO: Design of Multimodal Chatbot for an Experiential Media System

This paper presents the design of a multimodal chatbot for use in an interactive theater performance. This chatbot has an architecture consisting of vision and natural language processing capabilities, as well as embodiment in a non-anthropomorphic movable LED array set in a stage. Designed for interaction with up to five users at a time, the system can perform tasks including face detection and emotion classification, tracking of crowd movement through mobile phones, and real-time conversation to guide users through a nonlinear story and interactive games. The final prototype, named ODO, is a tangible embodiment of a distributed multimedia system that solves several technical challenges to provide users with a unique experience through novel interaction.

Crowd Modeling and Simulation for Safer Building Design

Crowd modeling and simulation are very important in the investigation and study of the dynamics of a crowd. They can be used not only to understand the behavior of a crowd in different environments, but also in risk assessment of spaces and in designing spaces that are safer for crowds, especially during emergency evacuations. This paper provides an overview of the use of the crowd simulation model for three main purposes; (1) as a modeling tool to simulate behavior of a crowd in different environments, (2) as a risk assessment tool to assess the risk posed in the environment, and (3) as an optimization tool to optimize the design of a building or space so as to ensure safer crowd movement and evacuation. Result shows that a simulation using the magnetic force model with a pathfinding feature provides a realistic crowd simulation and the use of ABC optimization can reduce evacuation time and improve evacuation comfort. This paper is expected to provide readers with a clearer idea on how crowd models are used in ensuring safer building planning and design.