Fujitsu partners Waseda University to uncover better solutions to urban congestion

Fujitsu Laboratories and Professor Shingo Takahashi of the Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at Waseda University have announced new technology that automatically analyses the factors leading to congestion based on the results of simulated human behaviour.

The simulations are currently used to predict how people behave when evacuating during emergencies or to review the flow of people in urban planning. Experts use the results of congestion prediction simulations to analyse the root causes of congestion, but the simulations must be evaluated individually, which takes time, and may also lead researchers to overlook potential causes.

Source: Fujitsu. Diagram simulating human behaviour and predicting congestion in an airport.

Fujitsu Laboratories and Fujitsu have been conducting research for some time on the modelling of agents, which enables highly refined simulations, and they have applied for 16 patents both inside and outside Japan stemming from this research. Additionally, Takahashi Laboratory, Waseda University, has also developed an agent-based simulation for solving various issues involving social systems such as organisation systems, consumer behaviour, and corporate strategy.

In 2015, Fujitsu and Professor Takahashi applied this technology to a human behaviour simulation developed for analysing congestion amelioration measures at an airport*and discovered about four times as many causes of congestion as analyses by experts.

For example, the system was able to determine that passengers piling up at a specific check-in counter caused sudden congestion at the security screening area. It was confirmed in the simulation that implementing measures based on the cause of congestion discovered with this technology would have the effect of reducing the number of people waiting at security by one sixth more than with the measures suggested as a result of expert analysis. On the other hand, only one third of the staff would be required, compared to the expert's recommendations. In addition, the time taken for this analysis was reduced from several months to a few minutes.

Fujitsu and Waseda University will move forward to conduct field trials using this technology, applying it to congestion at locations like event spaces, airports, and shopping malls, and evaluate its effectiveness, including with such measures as digital signage and the placement of commercial tenants. Fujitsu will also leverage its Human Centric AI Zinrai artificial intelligence and supercomputer technologies for this task.

*Using simulations created in a field trial at Fukuoka Airport.