Simulating Crowds in Real Time with Agent-Based Modelling and a Particle Filter

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how particle filters can be integrated with agent-based models to enable real-time simulation and data assimilation of crowd movements, addressing a key challenge in dynamic crowd modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for incorporating real-time data into agent-based crowd models using particle filters, enabling online model optimization.

Findings

Particle filters can perform online model optimization for crowd simulations.

The computational complexity increases exponentially with the number of agents.

Real-time crowd simulation has potential applications in managing complex environments.

Abstract

Agent-based modelling is a valuable approach for systems whose behaviour is driven by the interactions between distinct entities. They have shown particular promise as a means of modelling crowds of people in streets, public transport terminals, stadiums, etc. However, the methodology faces a fundamental difficulty: there are no established mechanisms for dynamically incorporating real-time data into models. This limits simulations that are inherently dynamic, such as pedestrian movements, to scenario testing of, for example, the potential impacts of new architectural configurations on movements. This paper begins to address this fundamental gap by demonstrating how a particle filter could be used to incorporate real data into an agent-based model of pedestrian movements at run time. The experiments show that it is indeed possible to use a particle filter to perform online (real time) model optimisation. However, as the number of agents increases, the number of individual particles (and hence the computational complexity) required increases exponentially. By laying the groundwork for the real-time simulation of crowd movements, this paper has implications for the management of complex environments (both nationally and internationally) such as transportation hubs, hospitals, shopping centres, etc.