Cyberinfrastructure for Pedestrian Dynamics-Based Analysis of Infection Propagation Through Air Travel

Pedestrian dynamics provides mathematical models that can accurately simulate the movement of individuals in a crowd. These models allow scientists to understand how different policies, such as boarding procedures on planes, can prevent, or make worse, the transmission of infections. This project seeks to develop a novel software that will provide a variety of pedestrian dynamics models, infection spread models, as well as data so that scientists can analyze the effect of different mechanisms on the spread of directly transmitted diseases in crowded areas. The initial focus of this project is on air travel. However, the software can be extended to a broader scope of applications in movement analysis and epidemiology, such as in theme parks and sports venues.