Query: agent-based modeling aviation safety

title: An agent based modeling approach for understanding the effect of worker management interactions on construction workers' safety related behaviors
abstract: Pervasive unsafe behaviors of construction workers are the primary cause of accidents on construction job sites. The workers' safety related behaviors are subject to a variety of factors, such as interactions with coworkers and interventions by management teams. The impacts of these factors have attracted considerable attention in academia but are yet to be fully examined. To provide a quantitative assessment of these impacts and their managerial implications in practice, an agent based modeling approach of construction safety related behaviors, which adopts a bottom up architecture, is proposed in this research. This approach regards safety performance as an emergent property of the behaviors and interactions of construction workers and management teams. The development of the agent based model is based on a range of theoretical and empirical evidence, including a cognitive analysis model for modeling worker behaviors, and site observations and surveys for the design of simulated working environment and tasks, as well as the modeling of individual behaviors and interactions. Four managerial scenarios are simulated using the proposed approach. Based on the simulation results, the effects of a number of managerial factors on the safety performance of construction workers are examined. These factors include duties of supervisors, the competency and inspection strategy of safety officers, the frequency of safety training, senior managers' involvement in safety activities and emphasis on safety goals. The effects of these factors are examined in a quantitative manner, and relevant implications for construction safety management practice are discussed. The findings prove that agent based modeling is an effective approach for analyzing the characteristics and patterns of construction safety related behaviors and assessing possible safety management strategies.

title: Surrogate Safety Assessment of Work Zone Rear End Collisions in a Connected Vehicle Environment: Agent Based Modeling Framework
abstract: AbstractThis paper presents an agent based modeling and simulation (ABMS) framework to evaluate the safety performance impacts of connected vehicle (CV) technologies in a work zone setting.

title: Using agent based modeling to understand stakeholder interactions in the rollout of nextgen by the federal aviation administration
abstract: The Federal Aviation Administration's NextGen technologies are planned to modernize the National Airspace System of the United States. However, NextGen's initially proposed completion date of 2025 has been pushed back years due to rollout issues. This study offers a concept for a decision making tool that uses agent based modeling to make implications about the remainder of the rollout. Observing simulations with a focus on stakeholder impact on the NextGen rollout offers insights into potential rollout outcomes, both favorable and unfavorable, which may allow decision makers to more reliably select their courses of action.

title: Exploring the emergence of a biojet fuel supply chain in Brazil: An agent based modeling approach
abstract: The aviation industry accounts for more than 2% of global CO2 emissions. Biojet fuel is expected to make an essential contribution to the decarbonization of the aviation sector. Brazil is seen as a key player in developing sustainable aviation biofuels owing to its long standing experience with biofuels. Nevertheless, a clear understanding of what policies may be conducive to the emergence of a biojet fuel supply chain is lacking. We extended a spatially explicit agent based model to explore the emergence of a biojet fuel supply chain from the existing sugarcane ethanol supply chain. The model accounts for new policies (feed in tariff and capital investment subsidy) and new considerations into the decision making about production and investment in processing capacity. We found that in a tax free gasoline regime, a feed in tariff above 3 R$/L stimulates the production of biojet fuel. At higher levels of gasoline taxation (i.e. 2.46 R$/L) however, any feed in tariff is insufficient to ensure the production of biojet fuel. Thus, at these levels of gasoline taxation, it is needed to introduce regulations on the production of biojet fuel to ensure its production. Given the current debate about the future direction of the biofuel policy in Brazil, we recommend further research into the effect of market mechanisms based on greenhouse gas emissions on the emergence of a Brazilian biojet fuel supply chain.

title: Understanding the relationship between safety investment and safety performance of construction projects through agent based modeling.
abstract: The construction industry in Hong Kong increased its safety investment by 300% in the past two decades; however, its accident rate has plateaued to around 50% for one decade. Against this backdrop, researchers have found inconclusive results on the causal relationship between safety investment and safety performance. Using agent based modeling, this study takes an unconventional bottom up approach to study safety performance on a construction site as an outcome of a complex system defined by interactions among a worksite, individual construction workers, and different safety investments. Instead of focusing on finding the absolute relationship between safety investment and safety performance, this study contributes to providing a practical framework to investigate how different safety investments interacting with different parameters such as human and environmental factors could affect safety performance. As a result, we could identify cost effective safety investments under different construction scenarios for delivering optimal safety performance.

title: IFC centric performance based evaluation of building evacuations using fire dynamics simulation and agent based modeling
abstract: Despite recent technological advancements in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries, the number of fire caused fatalities in residential and commercial buildings in the United States over the last decade has consistently been an order of magnitude higher than fatalities caused by all other types of natural disasters combined. In this research, EvacuSafe is developed as a tool for designers to allow for layout optimization of buildings and facilities in terms of their evacuation safety performance. Contributions of this research include the development and validation of two spatiotemporal risk indices to quantify the safety of the egress routes and individual building compartments. Other unique advantages of EvacuSafe include the seamless integration of fire dynamics simulation, agent based crowd simulation and building information models (BIM) using IFC data structures, allowing EvacuSafe to be readily used by designers to analyze a building layout design under various fire scenarios and for layout design optimization based on multiple safety criteria. The development of the framework, the risk indices, and the IFC based integration is illustrated and validated through a case study on a two story office building with 59 compartments. The results of the implementation show that the EvacuSafe is a valuable tool for evacuation design and planning that provides a more comprehensive evaluation of the evacuation performance in comparison to the existing indices and safety measures in the industry.

title: Increasing awareness in classroom evacuation situations using agent based modeling
abstract: Educational properties have recorded an average of 4980 structure fires between 2011 and 2015 according to US National Fire Protection Association. It has been determined that four out of five fires in schools have occurred between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. when pupils were around. Even though the percentage of structure fires in educational properties has fallen over the years, there is still place for improvement and knowing how to react in such situations can contribute to reducing pupils' injuries and also to their lifesaving. Thus, the present paper analysis the possibility of using agent based simulations in NetLogo for a classroom with two exits in order to increase pupils' awareness on how to act during an evacuation process caused by a fire. Based on an empirical study, it has been observed that after presenting the NetLogo evacuation simulation, the pupils' awareness has increased with up to 22.99% having a direct result on the overall evacuation time and their safety.

title: Reconsidering the Safety in Numbers Effect for Vulnerable Road Users: An Application of Agent Based Modeling
abstract: Increasing levels of active transport provide benefits in relation to chronic disease and emissions reduction but may be associated with an increased risk of road trauma. The safety in numbers (SiN) effect is often regarded as a solution to this issue; however, the mechanisms underlying its influence are largely unknown. We aimed to (1) replicate the SiN effect within a simple, simulated environment and (2) vary bicycle density within the environment to better understand the circumstances under which SiN applies.  Using an agent based modeling approach, we constructed a virtual transport system that increased the number of bicycles from 9% to 35% of total vehicles over a period of 1,000 time units while holding the number of cars in the system constant. We then repeated this experiment under conditions of progressively decreasing bicycle density.  We demonstrated that the SiN effect can be reproduced in a virtual environment, closely approximating the exponential relationships between cycling numbers and the relative risk of collision as shown in observational studies. The association, however, was highly contingent upon bicycle density. The relative risk of collisions between cars and bicycles with increasing bicycle numbers showed an association that is progressively linear at decreasing levels of density.  Agent based modeling may provide a useful tool for understanding the mechanisms underpinning the relationships previously observed between volume and risk under the assumptions of SiN. The SiN effect may apply only under circumstances in which bicycle density also increases over time. Additional mechanisms underpinning the SiN effect, independent of behavioral adjustment by drivers, are explored.

title: Modeling the effect of electric vehicle adoption on pedestrian traffic safety: An agent based approach
abstract: When operated at low speeds, electric and hybrid vehicles have created pedestrian safety concerns in congested areas of various city centers, because these vehicles have relatively silent engines compared to those of internal combustion engine vehicles, resulting in safety issues for pedestrians and cyclists due to the lack of engine noise to warn them of an oncoming electric or hybrid vehicle. However, the driver behavior characteristics have also been considered in many studies, and the high end prices of electric vehicles indicate that electric vehicle drivers tend to have a higher prosperity index and are more likely to receive a better education, making them more alert while driving and more likely to obey traffic rules. In this paper, the positive and negative factors associated with electric vehicle adoption and the subsequent effects on pedestrian traffic safety are investigated using an agent based modeling approach, in which a traffic micro simulation of a real intersection is simulated in 3D using AnyLogic software. First, the interacting agents and dynamic parameters are defined in the agent based model. Next, a 3D intersection environment is created to integrate the agent based model into a visual simulation, where the simulation records the number of near crashes occurring in certain pedestrian crossings throughout the virtual time duration of a year. A sensitivity analysis is also carried out with 9000 subsequent simulations performed in a supercomputer to account for the variation in dynamic parameters (ambient sound level, vehicle sound level, and ambient illumination) According to the analysis, electric vehicles have a 30% higher pedestrian traffic safety risk than internal combustion engine vehicles under high ambient sound levels. At low ambient sound levels, however, electric vehicles have only a 10% higher safety risk for pedestrians. Low levels of ambient illumination also increase the number of pedestrians involved in near crashes for both electric vehicles and combustion engine vehicles.

title: An agent based vertical evacuation model for a near field tsunami: Choice behavior, logical shelter locations, and life safety
abstract: In the event of near field tsunamis, vertical evacuation can be an alternative protective action to horizontal evacuation. The objective of this paper is to present an agent based modeling (ABM) framework to evaluate vertical evacuation behavior and shelter locations for a near field tsunami hazard from a Magnitude 9.0 Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake. The expected mortality rate depending on the location of the vertical evacuation shelter (VES) has been chosen as the primary criterion to assess the effectiveness of the vertical evacuation. In addition, maximum tsunami wave height and the vertical evacuation behavior changes with changes in the placement of the VES have been assessed from a constraint point of view. The results revealed that (1) the choice of VES locations will directly impact the proportion of the people who evacuate vertically; (2) The percentage of people who evacuate vertically exponentially drops as the shelter gets farther from the population centroid; (3) the location of shelter significantly impacts the total mortality rates; (4) improvements in evacuees' mobility, such as faster walking speed or shorter milling time, will significantly reduce mortality rate and expand the area of choices for VES locations; and (5) when more people choose to evacuate vertically, the total mortality rate reduces notably. However, wrong placement of VES, and at the same time promoting vertical evacuation behavior can result in catastrophic mortality rates. In addition, a study on the impact of the distance of the VES to the ocean, to the population centroid, and to the horizontal shelters outside of the inundation zone, on the total mortality rate and the evacuation efficiency has been performed. This work reveals the non linear correlation between the aforementioned characteristics of the VES on the expected mortality rate. The results of this research provide an evidence driven vertical evacuation modeling framework to guide decision makers at city, state, and federal level to understand the dynamics of vertical evacuation behavior and choice of vertical evacuation shelter locations for a community.