SIMULEM: Introducing Goal Oriented Behaviours in Crowd Simulation

Architectural domain needs for crowd simulation in order to validate the design of buildings that can host a large number of users, such as train stations, bus stations, or airports. Some simulation tools already exist to study flows of people inside constrained areas, but they only address the most visible behaviour of human beings, the navigation. Then, the environment is only considered as a set of obstacles to avoid, and the objectives of the simulated pedestrians are only a set of predefined destinations in the environment. However, real humans achieve higher level goals usually related to the interactions they must accomplish within their environment, such as in a train station: buying a ticket, consulting the departure board, etc. These interactions have a strong impact on the navigation tasks because they define a set of emergent destinations for a simulated pedestrian, and also provoke waiting queue formations. Thus, a goal oriented behaviour based on interactions with equipments should be placed at the heart of a simulation tool in order to study the everyday usage of public buildings.