Thursday, October 10, 2013, 3pm
Location: Room 1110 of the Nguyen Engineering Building

Rainald Lohner
School of Physics, Astronomy, and Computational Sciences
George Mason University

On the Modelling of Pedestrian Motion

Abstract
The accurate prediction of pedestrian motion can be used to assess the potential safety hazards and operational performance at events where many individuals are gathered. Examples of such situations are sport and music events, cinemas and theatres, museums, conference centers, places of pilgrimage and worship, as well as street demonstrations. Evacuation from airplanes, ships, trains and buildings also represent cases where the prediction of pedestrian motion can be used advantageously. The talk will review the different options available to describe and predict the motion of pedestrians, and then detail a model developed by the author over the last decade.