Modeling and Simulation of Pedestrian Traffic Flow

Questions about the efficiency and safety of pedestrian traffic systems are of major importance in the planning and design of such systems. As the use of functional--or performance-based--requirements becomes more popular, there is also an increasing need for methods and tools which can be used to evaluate if these functional requirements are met. This article presents a stochastic model based on the following assumptions: Any pedestrian facility can be modeled as a network of walkway sections. Pedestrian flow in this network can be modeled as a queueing network process, where each pedestrian is treated as a separate flow object, interacting with the other objects. Such a microscopic model is useful because it makes detailed modeling of human behavior possible. This article also presents a simulation tool, of which the main objective is to estimate the relevant performance measures of the pedestrian traffic system. The article includes two examples.