Research Highlights

Mini CV

Dirk Helbing is Professor of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation,and member of the Computer Science Department at ETH Zurich. He earned a PhD in physics and was Managing Director of the Institute of Transport &Economics at Dresden University of Technology in Germany. He is internationally known for his work on pedestrian crowds, vehicle traffic, and agent-based modelsof social systems. Furthermore, he coordinates the FuturICT Initiative (http://www.futurict.eu), which focuses on the understanding of techno-socioeconomicsystems, using Smart Data. His work is documented by hundreds of scientific articles, keynote lectures and media reports worldwide. Helbing iselected member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Complex Systems and of the prestigious German Academy of Sciences "Leopoldina". He isalso Chairman of the Physics of Socio-Economic Systems Division of the German Physical Society and co-founder of ETH Zurich's Risk Center. In 2013, he became a board member of the Global Brain Institute in Brussels. Within the ERC Advanced Investigator Grant "Momentum" he works on social simulations based on cognitive agents. His recent publication in the leading science journal Nature discusses globally networked risks and how to respond. With a publication in the highly prestigious journalScience, he furthermore contributed to unveiling the hiddenlaws of global epidemic spreading. On January 10, 2014, he received a honorary PhD from the TU Delft jointly from the Faculty ofTechnology, Policy and Management and the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences.

Research Highlights

An illustrated overview (slides) of the research at the Chair of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation (SOMS) is provided here.

Social Sciences:

• Microscopic foundation of evolutionary game theory and proportional imitation rule [1992a, 1992b, 1995, 1996, 1998]
• Stochastic modeling of game theoretical dynamics [1992, 1995, 1996, 2010]
• Model of self-organized behavioral conventions based on the coordination game [1990, 1992, 1995, 1996]
• Evolution of norms and spreading of costly punishment [2010a, 2010b]
• Mathematical foundation of social forces and social fields [1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2008]
• Social force model of pedestrian and crowd dynamics [1990, 1991, 1995, 2000a, 2000b, 2007, 2009, 2010]
• Emergence of behavioral roles in iterated games, individual specialization and differentiation [2004]
• Evolution of turn-taking in iterated game theoretical dilemmas, explanation by re-inforcement learning [2005]
• Models of collective behavior (herding, Mexican waves "La Ola", collective attention, ...) [2000b, 2002]
• Success-driven mobility and the outbreak of cooperation among selfish individuals [1999, 2000, 2002, 2008, 2009]
• Models of markets, business cycles, innovation, and urban growth [2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2011]
• Digital society and homo socialis [2013a, 2013b]
• Models of disaster spreading and optimal response management [2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2013a, 2013b, 2014a, 2014b]
• Socio-inspired technology (see below; traffic assistace, intervehicle communication, self-organised traffic light control)
• Swarm intelligence [2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2011]
• Data-centric social science [2010]

Publications on Game Theory, Crowd Dynamics, Innovation, Cascade Spreading, and Disaster Response Management

Theory of Traffic and Transport:

• Mathematical description of human and animal trail formation [1997a, 1997b]
• Self-organization phenomena in pedestrian crowds, models of crowd disasters [1995, 1999, 2000a, 2000b, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2011, 2012]
• Faster-is-slower and slower-is-faster effects [1999, 2000, 2006]
• Freezing-by-heating effect, noise-induced breakdown and ordering [2000, 2002]
• Gas-kinetic foundation of macroscopic, fluid-dynamic traffic equations [1996a, 1996b, 1998a, 1998b, 1999a, 1999b]
• Classification and phase diagram of congested traffic states [1998, 1999, 2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2010]
• Analytical models of self-organized transport phenomena and complex transport systems [2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009]
• Analytical Theory of Traffic Flows, Empirical Facts and Scientific Controversies Related to Them
• Model of business cycles based on unstable material flows in logistic networks [2003, 2004a, 2004b, 2005]
• Bio-inspired logistics (BioLogistics), traffic organization of ants and bacteria [2000, 2004, 2006, 2009]
• Consistent, unified description of traffic, transport, and logistics systems [2004, 2005a, 2005b, 2006]
• Traffic assistance based on adaptive cruise control systems [2007, 2008]
• Intervehicle communication and jam anticipation [2006, 2007, 2010]
• Self-organized traffic light control [2005, 2006, 2008a, 2008b]

Statistical Physics:

• Analytical and numerical path-integral solution of the master equation as alternative to Monte-Carlo simulations [1992, 1994, 1995a, 1995b]