Optimising Pedestrian Flow Around Large Stadiums

Abstract

This study proposes a method that combines the cellular automaton model and the differential evolution algorithm for optimising pedestrian flow around large stadiums. A miniature version of a large stadium and its surrounding areas is constructed via the cellular automaton model. Special mechanisms are applied to influence the behaviour of an agent that leaves from a certain stadium gate. The agent may be attracted to a nearby business facility and/or guided to uncongested areas. The differential evolution algorithm is then used to determine the optimal probabilities of the influencing agents for each stadium gate. The main goal is to reduce the evacuation time, and other goals such as reducing the costs for the influencing agents’ behaviours and the individual evacuation time are also considered. We found that, although they worked differently in different scenarios, the attraction and guidance of agents significantly reduced the evacuation time. The optimal evacuation time was achieved with moderate attraction to the business facilities and strong guidance to the detouring route. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can provide a goal-dependent, exit-specific strategy that is otherwise hard to acquire for optimising pedestrian flow.