From the Microscale to Collective Crowd Dynamics

This paper deals with the kinetic theory modeling crowd dynamics with the aim of showing how the dynamics at the microscale is transferred to the dynamics of collective behaviors. The derivation of a new model is followed by a qualitative analysis of the initial value problem. Existence of solutions is proved for arbitrary large times, while simulations are developed by computational schemes based on splitting methods, where the transport equations are treated by finite difference methods for hyperbolic equations. Some preliminary reasoning toward the modeling of panic conditions is proposed.