Modeling group structures in pedestrian . . .

Inter-group relationship allows different group structures to be easily modeled. Besides, different group sizes, intra-ehav ngine eople merg n etc ed m groups. As discussed in [13], different group structures affect the flow as well as evacuation efficiency in emergency situa-tions, e.g., a leader–follower structure may be more smooth and efficient than a clustered structure if a group has a large number of members. In this case, a clustered group structure can result in slow movement, especially in a constrained area. It is the belief of this paper that modeling group structures can lead to more realistic crowd behavior simulations, and mod-eling group structures can facilitate the understanding of the effect of grouping on crowd behavior