Abstract: In today-s modern world, the number of vehicles is
increasing on the road. This causes more people to choose walking
instead of traveling using vehicles. Thus, proper planning of
pedestrians- paths is important to ensure the safety of pedestrians in a
walking area. Crowd dynamics study the pedestrians- behavior and
modeling pedestrians- movement to ensure safety in their walking paths.
To date, many models have been designed to ease pedestrians-
movement. The Social Force Model is widely used among researchers
as it is simpler and provides better simulation results. We will discuss
the problem regarding the ritual of circumambulating the Ka-aba
(Tawaf) where the entrances to this area are usually congested which
worsens during the Hajj season. We will use the computer simulation
model SimWalk which is based on the Social Force Model to simulate
the movement of pilgrims in the Tawaf area. We will first discuss the
effect of uni and bi-directional flows at the gates. We will then restrict
certain gates to the area as the entrances only and others as exits only.
From the simulations, we will study the effect of the distance of other
entrances from the beginning line and their effects on the duration of
pilgrims circumambulate Ka-aba. We will distribute the pilgrims at the
different entrances evenly so that the congestion at the entrances can be
reduced. We would also discuss the various locations and designs of
barriers at the exits and its effect on the time taken for the pilgrims to
exit the Tawaf area.
Abstract: The social force model which belongs to the
microscopic pedestrian studies has been considered as the supremacy
by many researchers and due to the main feature of reproducing the
self-organized phenomena resulted from pedestrian dynamic. The
Preferred Force which is a measurement of pedestrian-s motivation to
adapt his actual velocity to his desired velocity is an essential term on
which the model was set up. This Force has gone through stages of
development: first of all, Helbing and Molnar (1995) have modeled
the original force for the normal situation. Second, Helbing and his
co-workers (2000) have incorporated the panic situation into this
force by incorporating the panic parameter to account for the panic
situations. Third, Lakoba and Kaup (2005) have provided the
pedestrians some kind of intelligence by incorporating aspects of the
decision-making capability. In this paper, the authors analyze the
most important incorporations into the model regarding the preferred
force. They make comparisons between the different factors of these
incorporations. Furthermore, to enhance the decision-making ability
of the pedestrians, they introduce additional features such as the
familiarity factor to the preferred force to let it appear more
representative of what actually happens in reality.