Cellular automata modeling of pedestrian movements

An approach is taken to modeling pedestrian movements which attempts to capture the behaviors of pedestrians at the micro level while attaining realistic macro level activity. This approach is based on a cellular automata (CA) rule set that emulates actual pedestrian goals such as minimizing distance traveled and avoidance of conflicts with others. The emergent group behavior is an outgrowth of the interaction of the rule set in simulation. The approach taken is for pedestrians in a large open space such as a rail or bus terminal, shopping mall, or office lobby where conflicting movements at high volumes would tend to cause congestion and reduce overall flows of persons. A particular rule set is examined for emergent group behavior which is examined as a hypothetical model for actual pedestrian flow patterns in crowds. The approach is also applicable to pedestrians on sidewalks. At street corners, and in traffic crossing lanes. The modeling effort to date has enhanced the investigation of what behaviors to look for in determining the important rules for pedestrian decisions and movements.