Royal HaskoningDHV chooses Oasys MassMotion for crowd simulation
In-depth analysis of pedestrian flows in crowded station railway terminals.
One of the world’s leading firms of consulting engineers, Royal HaskoningDHV, has chosen Oasys Mass Motion crowd simulation software to help it maintain its leading position in transport link planning.
MassMotion is the next generation of crowd and pedestrian simulation software and its unique ability to predict the movement of tens of thousands of individual personalities in complex 3D environments proved decisive in the comprehensive Royal HaskoningDHV evaluation and selection process.
Royal HaskoningDHV chose MassMotion to support, in the first instance, their work with Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) the principal Dutch railway operator and ProRail the Dutch rail infrastructure authority. Both are engaged in major renovation projects at city terminals throughout the Netherlands to enable the system to cater for increasing passenger numbers. Across the network, Royal HaskoningDHV consultants are also addressing the issues that will arise as the frequency of services to already-crowded stations and terminals is necessarily increased to cater for future passenger demand.
Using MassMotion, urban planning and transit consultant Wieger Pasman and his team can now answer all the clients “what if?” questions in much greater depth. They can easily simulate peaks and troughs in passenger traffic, predict the behaviour of people when they are diverted from their normal path during renovation work, and optimise emergency evacuation scenarios.
“We deal with stations that have to manage 150,000 or more passengers a day,” said Wieger Pasman. “Even the most basic analysis that we want to perform can involve predicting the behaviour of up to 20,000 people”, which MassMotion does with ease.
“The other key advantage of MassMotion is that the modelling shows us what is happening in 3D, so we can see how passengers will choose to move around in modern multi-level stations.
The ability to import a variety of 3D models when working with MassMotion was another, practical factor in Royal HaskoningDHV’s choice, but the real deciding factor was how well the software performed in comparison to real-life scenarios, as measured by human observation by a team from the University of Delft.
“People’s behaviour in a railway station is unique,” commented Wieger Pasman. “They tend to move faster because they know where they are going. They have routines and are averse to change, making re-routing during renovation work particularly challenging because maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction is a key part of our brief,“ said Wieger Pasman.
“MassMotion’s predictions are probably as near to real life as it is possible to get statistically and give us a sound platform on which to propose and evaluate new ideas.”
With a number of station projects in the pipeline, Royal HaskoningDHV is further streamlining the modelling process by building its own MassMotion library of 'standard' components for more-predictble scenario such as bottlenecks at ticket gates.
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About Royal HaskoningDHV
Royal HaskoningDHV, headquartered in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, is one of Europe’s leading project management, engineering and consultancy service providers, ranking in the global top 10 of independently owned, non-listed companies and in the top 40 overall.
With nearly 8,000 professionals providing services worldwide from 100 offices in 35 countries, Royal HaskoningDHV carries out more than 30,000 projects every year in planning, transport, infrastructure, water, maritime, aviation, industry, energy, mining and buildings.
Please visit RoyalHaskoning at www.royalhaskoningdhv.com
For further information please contact:
Royal HaskoningDHV
Wieger Pasman
wieger.pasman@rhdhv.com
+31 6 2180 2281
About Oasys Limited
Established in 1976, Oasys Limited is the software house of Arup, a global organization of consulting engineers, planners and project managers working in all areas of the built environment
(infrastructure, transportation, water, vehicle engineering etc.).
It is subject to the exacting demands of Arup engineers who require efficient, reliable and technically competent tools, and so the Oasys team delivers consistently superior and innovative products. Oasys software is characterized by attractive, intuitive user interfaces, ease of use, scalability and affordability.
Oasys supports a global client base that includes the top 25 building design consultancies (figures based on the 2011 NCE consultants file).
It is emerging as a leading force in providing practical IT support for collaborative BIM (Building Information Modeling) which is changing the way that construction projects are conceived and delivered across the world. In addition to the software products that enable engineers to tackle every conceivable structural and geotechnical engineering challenge; Oasys has developed Mail Manager a tool that streamlines email workflow with two simple but powerful features: an efficient filing tool and a fast, flexible search.
Please visit Oasys at http://www.oasys-software.com/. For further information please contact:
Oasys Limited
Lynne East (PR) lynne.east@btinternet.com +44 (0) 1273 731184 /+44 (0) 7850 965442
