Our question of this week is dedicated to pedestrian simulation, or more precisely the Social Force Model which was inspired by Newton Dynamics and describes the interaction between pedestrians by mathematically formulating social and psychological impacts as forces. The question this time goes as follows:

Who was not involved in the development of the Social Force Model?

1. Prof. Dr. Dirk Helbing

2. Péter Molnár

3. Isaac Newton

Do you know the right answer? Go simply on www.the-mind-of-movement.de, select the correct answer and send it to us. We wish you lots of fun and good luck in winning the challenge!

Background information and tips:

Motivation for movement
Pedestrians move purposefully as a rule, meaning they walk at a desired speed toward their destination and they want to reach it as quickly as possible. The quickest route is often very similar to the shortest route. However, there are situations where this “rule” does not apply – the simplest of which is when a large group of pedestrians is doing a u-turn, for example. The “detour”, i.e. the larger radius, is then expected to be the faster solution.

PTV Viswalk is a pedestrian simulation tool specifically designed for realistic modelling of pedestrian behaviour. The underlying function is called “dynamic potential”.