Simulation and Visualization of the Behavior of Handicapped People in Virtually Reconstructed Public Buildings

ABSTRACT The planning of public transport infrastructures today must respect the needs of a wide variety of travelers. In particular the design of guiding systems needs to take the reduced reception capabilities of the elderly and handicapped people into account. Therefore tools for the evaluation of guiding systems need to be developed. Such tools must be based on empirical knowledge on the perception capabilities of the various user groups as well as detailed microscopic pedestrian movement models in order to represent typical paths taken. We model the cognition of guiding systems to enable a realistic representation for the motion and orientation behavior of elderly and handicapped people having difficulties perceiving the guidance information and not being familiar with a building. To demonstrate the feasibility of the approach we discuss a technique to virtually reconstruct public buildings in 3D and visualize the simulated crowd with detailed models for each individual. The lines of sight of selected, handicapped persons, who are moving amongst other persons, are also shown in order to evaluate the visibility of the guiding information in the infrastructure and to hint at possible improvements.