Validation of Crowd Models Including Social Groups

The development of group models within models of pedestrian motion has recently become a new focus of research. This interest was triggered by insight from the social sciences: Small groups often dominate the crowd at large events and the need to associate with family and friends may dominate over flight instincts. It is therefore desirable that crowd simulators adopt the new group models to better mitigate risks for example at large events or at public infrastructures. However, to make this feasible reliable validation tests must be made available. Developers and users alike should be able to check whether the adopted model indeed captures the essential characteristics of a crowd composed of subgroups. As a desirable side effect, common validation tests would make simulation tools easier to compare and their range of application easier to assess. This can help to ensure a minimum quality standard and thus to further mitigate risks. In this paper we suggest basic visual tests and some quantitative test were data is available.