Although pedestrians have individual preferences, aims, and destinations, the dynamics of pedestrian crowds is surprisingly predictable. Pedestrians can move freely only at small pedestrian densities. Otherwise their motion is affected by repulsive interactions with other pedestrians, giving...

The study of crowd dynamics is interesting because of the various self-organization phenomena resulting from the interactions of many pedestrians, which may improve or obstruct their flow. Besides formation of lanes of uniform walking direction and oscillations at bottlenecks at moderate...

With our knowledge of the universe, we have sent men to the moon. We know microscopic details of objects around us and within us. And yet we know relatively little about how our society works and how it reacts to changes brought upon it. Humankind is now facing serious crises for which we must...

The modeling of complex systems such as ecological or socio-economic systems can be very challenging. Although various modeling approaches exist, they are generally not compatible and mutually consistent, and empirical data often do not allow one to decide what model is the right one, the best...

Game theory formalizes certain interactions between physical particles or between living beings in biology, sociology, and economics, and quantifies the outcomes by payoffs. The prisoner's dilemma (PD) describes situations in which it is profitable if everybody cooperates rather than defects...

Each year, crowd disasters happen in different areas of the world. How and why do such disasters happen? Are the fatalities caused by relentless behavior of people or a psychological state of panic that makes the crowd 'go mad'? Or are they a tragic consequence of a breakdown of coordination?...

This perspective paper discusses challenges and risks of the information age, and the implications for the information and communication technologies that need to be built and operated. It addresses ethical and policy issues related with Big Data and how procedures for privacy-preserving data...

It is shown that the Boltzmann-like equations allow the formulation of a very general model for behavioral changes. This model takes into account spontaneous (or externally induced) behavioral changes and behavioral changes by pair interactions. As most important social pair interactions,...

Oscillatory flow patterns have been observed in many different driven many-particle systems. It seems reasonable to assume that the emergent oscillations in opposing flows are due to or related to an increased efficiency (throughput). In this contribution, however, we will study intersecting...