Some Indications on How to Calibrate the Social Force Model of Pedestrian Dynamics

The social force model of pedestrian dynamics is formulated in such a way that (a) most of its parameters do not have an immediate interpretation in the sense that they cannot be measured directly, (b) often one single parameter has an impact on many aspects of walking behavior, and (c) a certain aspect of walking behavior results from the values of more than one parameter. This makes calibration difficult. The aim of this paper is to give practitioners an indication of how to proceed in the calibration process. For this purpose, by analytical transformations the parameters of the social force model are related to real properties that have a clear and immediate meaning and are also highly relevant result properties of a simulation: extent and clearance time of a queue, respectively maximum density, and capacity flow. The theory for this is presented, and thus this study offers a deeper understanding of the model including its theoretical aspects.