Workshop on Pedestrian Dynamics Tools for Interdisciplinary Applications

Background

Pedestrian dynamics simulates the fine-scaled trajectories of individuals as they move, interacting with other pedestrians, the built environment, and other moving objects, such as robots and vehicles. It has a variety of applications where such information would be useful. For example, it can be used to identify infection risk in crowded locations, design the built environment for efficient movement, or design procedures for safe operation of humans and autonomous agents.

The interdisciplinary, multi-university, VIPRA project has been developing tools to ease the use of pedestrian dynamics simulations for such interdisciplinary applications with funding from the National Science Foundation (awards 2027518, 1931483) and the National Institutes of Health (R15LM013382).

Workshop goals

This workshop is targeted at students, and others, who are interested in interdisciplinary applications of pedestrian dynamics for research and decision making. The workshop goals are as follows.

  1. Explain pedestrian dynamics and its potential applications.
  2. Introduce the VIPRA software framework and provide instructions on its use, which does not require programming knowledge.
  3. Obtain feedback from participants on desirable software features for pedestrian dynamics software for use in diverse applications, such as epidemic modeling and bioinformatics research.
  4. Develop plans to grow the community that can leverage pedestrian dynamics.

Requirements

  • Access to a CAD software of your choice. (We recommend LibreCAD if you do not have CAD software of your own.)
  • Access to some method of SFTP. For Windows users, we recommend WinSCP.

Location and Dates

The workshop will be held online through Zoom.

It will involve two half-day sessions: Oct 21, 22.

See the Schedule tab above to view a detailed schedule.

Honorarium

The workshop is open to anyone who will benefit from it. Select participants from US universities, designated as VIPRA Pedestrian Dynamics Fellows, will be provided an honorarium of $150 on completing the required homework assignments (estimated to take around 1 hour), with an additional $50 for completing a more challenging optional assignment. You must attend the virtual workshop live in order to receive the honorarium.strong>

VIPRA Pedestrian Dynamics Fellows:

  • Xueping (Susan) Liang, Florida International University
  • Sumit Kha, Florida International University
  • Ruimin Sun, Florida International University

Registration

Participants may register Here.

Registration is free.

Organizers

  • Ashok Srinivasan, Co-Chair (University of West Florida)
  • Tyler Kass, Co-Chair (University of West Florida)
  • Sirish Namilae (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University)
  • Robert Pahle (New York University)
  • Matthew Scotch (Arizona State University)
  • John Coffey (University of West Florida)
  • Rolland Goodenough (University of West Florida)

Contact

Ashok Srinivasan