Researchers have created a new AI tool that is claimed to analyse how groups of people behave in cities up to 400 times faster than methods currently available.
The research team, led by The Alan Turing Institute’s chief scientist Professor Mark Girolami, has combined machine learning with classical numerical models for large scale studies of behavioural models at city, region and national level.
Its work has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, with examples such as how retail behaviour in London can be affected by traffic congestion measures.
Girolami said: said “Analysing how groups of people behave and move around in a city using observed data, such as traffic cameras, is a big challenge. But AI gives us the ability to simulate urban environments and study the behaviour and movement of people more easily.
“Our research describes one of the first ways to solve this problem using artificial neural networks and we hope that this method offers a powerful tool to understand the behaviour of people cities.”
