Pedestrian Mobility in Theme Park Disasters

Realistic mobility simulation is critical for evaluating the performance of communication networks. Although various mobility models exist, they do not capture the changes in the mobility decisions of pedestrians in specific environments. For instance, in the case of a natural or manmade disaster, the main goal is the safe evacuation of the area, creating unique pedestrian mobility patterns. In this article we focus on the scenario of evacuating a theme park in response to a disaster. We discuss the characteristics of theme parks, modeling the environment, and the mobility decisions of pedestrians. Real theme park maps are used for modeling the environment with roads, physical obstacles, and simulating disaster events. The mobility decisions of the pedestrians are based on the evacuation goal, the limited knowledge of the area, and the obstacles. The impact of the interactions between the crowd flows is modeled based on the concept of social force. The model is evaluated by comparison with the existing mobility models and the GPS traces of theme park visitors.