Simulation of Pedestrian Behaviour in Urban Spaces. A Case Study of 'Sidi Gaber' Public Space, Alexandria, Egypt

摘要

Many people think that human behaviour in open spaces is 'chaotic' or at least very irregular. This differs from pedestrians' behaviour in complex situations to normal situations, where people apply an optimized behavioural strategy through these urban spaces. This means that urban design cannot be limited only to physical forms, but also includes people activities that play the important role in urban spaces. Hence, it supposed to be designed to meet pedestrians' needs and support their activities, while, pedestrians are trying to achieve their goals and get their destinations through those spaces. But unfortunately, there is a miss-match between their needs and spaces design in many urban spaces, which reflects on their behavior and leads them to act randomly in a very irregular way. This research discusses the idea of finding out the link between pedestrians' behavior and the design of urban spaces utilizing a computer simulation model for pedestrian movement in urban spaces, through an application in one of Alexandria's open spaces "Sidi-Gaber" railway station. This computer simulation technique would help architects, and urban designers to find, understand, and evaluate the negative and positive impacts of their designs on pedestrian's behavior through cities urban spaces before the implementation stage.