Experimental study on age and gender differences in microscopic movement characteristics of students

Campus security has aroused many concerns from the whole society.Stampede is one of the most frequent and influential accidents in campus.Studies on pedestrian dynamics especially focusing on students are essential for campus security,which are helpful to improve facility design and emergency evacuation strategy.In this paper,primary and middle school students were recruited to participate in the single-file experiments.The microscopic movement characteristics,including walking speed,headway,gait characteristics(step length,step frequency and swaying amplitude)and their relations were investigated.Age and gender differences in the headway-speed diagram and space requirements were analyzed by statistical tests.The results indicated that the impacts of age and gender were significant.There were three stages for the influence of gender on the headway-speed diagram for both age groups.The impacts on students'space requirements were consistent for different age and gender groups.But the impacts of age and gender on free-flow speed were affected by each other.Due to the connection of walking speed and gait characteristics,the comparisons of gait characteristics between different ages and genders were performed to understand the corresponding differences in speed more deeply.The results showed that differences in step length and swaying amplitude between males and females were significant for both age groups.The effect of gender on step frequency was significant for primary students.But for middle school students,whether gender had significant impact on step frequency was not clear here because of the large P-value.Besides,the influence of age on gait characteristics changed with gender.

On Effective Campus Attack Response:Insights from Agent-Based Simulation for Improving Emergency Information Sharing System Design and Response Strategy

Information sharing systems are a critical component of emergency response—especially in campus attack situations that unfold very rapidly.The design of effective information sharing systems is often difficult,however,due to a lack of data on these assault events.This work takes an agent-based approach to simulate three campus emergency information sharing system design alternatives in the context of a college campus knife attack,and incorporates data from on-campus student surveys and parameter tuning experiments.Alternatives are evaluated according to:(1)improved student attack response outcomes;and(2)effective institutional response to the attack.The results confirm that increased awareness supports rapid emergency reporting,but an important gap exists between students'awareness and their ability to respond effectively,which depends on a number of campus-specific factors.A strong positive impact is seen from safe and efficient information sharing with authorities.This impact depends largely on reporting system implementation qualities,as opposed to campus-specific factors.On a campus in China,WeChat was used as a basis for messaging models.The simulation results show a 9%drop in casualties and a 22%faster police response time from a text-based reporting system using‘‘base''WeChat features instead of traditional phone reporting.Our results also project a 30%drop in casualties and 52%faster police response time using a system designed around a WeChat Mini Program or standalone campus emergency reporting app.These outcomes suggest a number of recommendations for improving outdated campus emergency information-sharing systems and response strategies.