The goal of this effort is to provide a more realistic simulation model of crowd behavior under both panic and non-panic conditions by considering individual differences in age, gender, culture and ethnicity.  This would be a valuable tool for police departments, the military, and others to use for event handling or in terrorist situations.  It could also be used for building design to accommodate cultural differences.

To attain the research goal, several parallel research efforts are required.  Each of these auxiliary pieces of research will provide a valuable tool for future research and is in itself a desirable product.  Briefly, the required auxiliary efforts are:

• Review, summarize, evaluate, and possibly modify software for capturing crowd information from videos.
• Create a data base for crowd movements in emergency and non-emergency situations.
• Generalize the social forces and the parameters used in crowd simulations to include effects of age, gender, ethnicity, and culture.
• Obtain parameter estimates of crowd behavior (as opposed to individual or small group) in both emergency and non emergency situations.
• Use stochastic distributions for capturing both within and between person variability of parameter values based on situation (panic vs. non-panic) and interactions among types of individuals.
• Development of a statistical diagnostic predictor of crowd disturbances.
• Generate mechanical-like potentials and associated conservation-like laws for the evolution of crowds and the interactions that occur between individuals in crowds.
• Produce a portable simulation.