Describing/Modelling the Dynamics of Pedestrian Behaviour - From the Role of Ambiance to a Hypotesis for a Physical Model

Paper session #C1#4International audiencePedestrian behaviour in public space is a vast subject of research, involving numerous disciplines. This article will address it from the point of view of path making. The approach developed here highlights the role played by architectural and urban surroundings in pedestrian dynamics, as situations of sensory interaction, which we experience according to a network-actor system. The actor may be a physical person, a group of persons, a moveable or fixed built object or semiographic features within the space, sensory elements of the environment such as a particular light, a zone or source of heat or coolness, soothing or stress-inducing sounds, and so on. We will first present the adaptation of a method of observation in situ (recurrent observation), then describe experiments with a numerical relational model. This is the physical model developed by ACROE, which generates dynamics using the descriptors and operators of Newtonian physics (the force concept and the principle of action-reaction)