The excluded-volume effect in microscopic pedestrian simulations

We propose a pedestrian position update rule, which is added to a microscopic pedestrian model to avoid pedestrian overlap. In the rule, the step size of a pedestrian moving in a selected direction at each update is in inverse proportion to the repulsive actions imposed by other pedestrians moving in a direction with an exponential rate. The positions of the pedestrians are then updated in each small time interval. In this way, a barrier between the pedestrians can be generated, and after updating their positions the pedestrians do not overlap with each other. The modified model is compared to the original model through a simulation of the evacuation process of pedestrians in a closed area. The simulation results indicate that the modified model is superior to the original model in several aspects.