Simulating spatial behaviour

Name, title and affiliation
Hans Skov-Petersen (hsp@life.ku.dk)
Senior Researcher
Forest & Landskape Denmark
Faculty of Life Sciences
University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Short Biography
Hans Skov-Petersen - Ph.D. in Geography (GIS and planning) - is Senior Researcher and GIS-coordinator of Forest and Landscape Denmark which is an institute under University of Copenhagen. He is responsible for the teaching curriculum in the field of GIS. Hans' main research interests include: GIS-based models of humans' spatial behaviour, Agent based simulation models, Indicators of urban environment, GIS in relation physical planning processes and decision making, Inaccuracy of geodata and spatial models and GIS-based communication.

Bernhard Snizek (bs@koenigsnizek.org)
Technical Director
metascapes - KÖNIG/SNIZEK

Bernhard Snizek, MSc in Landscape Architecture is founder of metascapes and co-founder of and technical director at KÖNIG/SNIZEK. He works mostly in the fields of applied time/space-enabled content management systems, cultural heritage management systems and simulation of complex processes in time and space.

Abstract
Empirical assessment of human behaviour – by means of questionnaire surveys, automatic counters, GPS tracking etc. – provides information about the individuals or locations monitored. It provides a fraction of the picture of the entire populations’ behaviour. If the behaviour of an entire system of populations is of interest - and every individual for natural reasons cannot be monitored – simulated individuals have to be applied. A major challenge is to reveal behavioural parameters from monitoring campaigns that enable construction of software robots (agents) which - in a cyber world - can behave as their real world counter parts. Based on the agent-based model Kvintus (developed by Forest & Landscape Denmark), the presentation will focus on the way behavioural parameters can be revealed from monitoring activities and further applied to agent-based simulation. Emphasis will be put on constitution of behavioural states (types of behaviour) and transitions (situations in which change between states takes place).  States are typically defined by goals (places to go) and preferences/choices between spatial options (directions to take). Transitions occur at given times (time of day or relative to the ‘journey’ performed) or at events (sudden emerging situations or when thresholds are exhausted).