Fast and Robust Flocking of Protesters on Street Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple model for protesters forming large, mobile groups on city streets, emphasizing the importance of alignment rules for effective and robust flocking behavior.

Contribution

It identifies the critical role of alignment rules in flocking and demonstrates how combining them with other tactics improves group robustness and speed.

Findings

Alignment is crucial for fast flocking.

Combining rules enhances robustness.

Groups formed are remarkably resilient.

Abstract

We present a simple model of protesters scattered throughout a city who want to gather into large and mobile groups. This model relies on random walkers on a street network that follow tactics built from a set of basic rules. Our goal is to identify the most important rules for fast and robust flocking of walkers. We explore a wide set of tactics and show the central importance of a specific rule based on alignment. Other rules alone perform poorly, but our experiments show that combining alignment with them enhances flocking, and that obtained groups are then remarkably robust.