Research Highlights

Mini CV

Dirk Helbing has worked as Managing Director of the Institute for Transport & Economics at TU Dresden and is now Professor of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation at ETH Zurich. Having studied physics and mathematics, he investigates complex social, economic, and transport systems with methods from statistical physics, individual-based models, and behavioral experiments. Helbing is well-known for the social force model, in particular its application to self-organization phenomena in pedestrian crowds. Besides the slower-is-faster effect, he introduced the freezing-by-heating effect and the phase diagram of congested traffic states. Recent work applies principles of collective intelligence and dynamics to the optimization of freeway and urban traffic flows. In game theory, Helbing proposed a microscopic foundation of evolutionary game theory and studied self-organized behavioral conventions early on. His current work develops socio-inspired technologies and investigates the role of success-driven motion for the establishment of cooperation among selfish individuals.

Research Highlights

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 upcoming April 29]
  
• 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, 2010]
  
• Models of markets, business cycles, innovation, and urban growth [2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2011]
  
• Models of disaster spreading and optimal response management [2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009]
  
• Socio-inspired technology (see below; traffic assistace, intervehicle communication, self-organised traffic light control)
• Swarm intelligence [2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2011]

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]
  
• 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]