Vadere: An open-source simulation framework to promote interdisciplinary understanding
This tool addresses the problem for researchers across psychology, sociology, engineering, and computer science who need to compare competing pedestrian dynamics models, though it is incremental as it builds on existing models.
The authors tackled the lack of a universally accepted locomotion model for crowd dynamics by developing Vadere, an open-source simulation framework that provides pre-implemented versions of widely spread models to facilitate comparison and interdisciplinary use.
Pedestrian dynamics is an interdisciplinary field of research. Psychologists, sociologists, traffic engineers, physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists all strive to understand the dynamics of a moving crowd. In principle, computer simulations offer means to further this understanding. Yet, unlike for many classic dynamical systems in physics, there is no universally accepted locomotion model for crowd dynamics. On the contrary, a multitude of approaches, with very different characteristics, compete. Often only the experts in one special model type are able to assess the consequences these characteristics have on a simulation study. Therefore, scientists from all disciplines who wish to use simulations to analyze pedestrian dynamics need a tool to compare competing approaches. Developers, too, would profit from an easy way to get insight into an alternative modeling ansatz. Vadere meets this interdisciplinary demand by offering an open-source simulation framework that is lightweight in its approach and in its user interface while offering pre-implemented versions of the most widely spread models.