Dynamic potential

Dynamic potential is a route-based method used to control the search for the best route that pedestrians can take within a level. Thereby pedestrians are not meant to take the shortest distance path, but the path with the least estimated travel time to their destination or intermediate destination. Once you have the selected the Dynamic Potential for a ramp or stairway, this potential will have an impact on the construction element and supports lane formation in pedestrian flows. If a route location on a pedestrian route (with the selected dynamic potential) is on a ramp or stairway, it will affect pedestrians moving towards a ramp or stairway. The route to the construction element will not be affected as pedestrians using a stairway or ramp will automatically be navigated by the static potential. If pedestrians using the ramp or stairway are not to be navigated by the static potential but by the dynamic potential, you can select this option in the attribute list of the ramp or stairway and define the parameters cell size, obstacle distance, impact h direction impact, g general strength and the calculation interval for the ramp or stairway.

The dynamic potential method is spatially continuous and complements the pedestrians' dynamic partial route, which takes the number, volume or travel time of pedestrians into account.

For both the dynamic potential and partial route method, the travel time reduction is the determining factor for walking behavior. Travel time based partial routes that are based on the dynamic potential method, however, provide pedestrians with a discrete choice of different routes at a certain time. If the dynamic potential is active for a destination or an intermediate destination, pedestrians will try to take the route they currently believe is the quickest. This means pedestrians want to move in a direction that according to a heuristic mathematical method is considered the shortest walking time to the next destination or intermediate destination.

Even this rather simplified description of the dynamic potential methods shows its continuous character. There is no specific decision point. Pedestrians continuously aim at optimizing their travel time. This is limited by the simulation time step only. Pedestrians do not try to take the path with the shortest travel time out of a limited number of user-defined routes. With the dynamic potential method, pedestrians choose their trajectory automatically, and thus their route from a continuously unlimited and uncountable number of possible trajectories.

Calculation of the dynamic route potential is very computation time consuming. The dynamic potential field for a specific route is only calculated as long as there are pedestrians that actually use the route.