Direction Modifiers
Different Roles of Direction Modifiers
The principal role of a Direction Modifier is to re-target Entities to other Activity Objects during their journey. This is useful when, for example, you want to redirect waiting Entities to a platform in response to a station announcement or when you want to define a catchment area from which a percentage of people is redirected to a nearby attraction (for example a shop or ticket office) or an alternative route.
A second role is to change an Entity’s Type. As an example, this can be useful when modelling passengers who drop off luggage at a certain point in the model and thereafter occupy a smaller footprint and possibly move at a different pace.
A third role is to change an Entity’s Final Destination. This could be used during evacuation modelling: the Direction Modifier could change an Entity’s Final Destination to be one of the exits as soon as an evacuation begins.
Scope and Influence of Direction Modifiers
Direction Modifiers can be active throughout a simulation or you can make them active at certain times only. To turn a Direction Modifier ‘on’ or ‘off’ at certain times, you can associate it with an Availability Profile. Alternatively, you can use conditional functionality to activate a Direction Modifier when certain conditions (for example, a certain level of congestion or, if you have imported FDS files, a certain temperature or level of visibility) occur within the simulation.
Direction Modifiers can be configured to affect all of the Entities within them when active, or they can be restricted to affect a subset of their occupants. You can do this either by specifying the percentage of Entities affected by the Direction Modifier, or by providing an absolute number of pedestrians to affect. This last goal is achieved by associating the Direction Modifier with an Event Profile.
If you choose to affect only a subset of the Entities, you can place a Selection Segment to dictate which Entities are selected. See Placing a Selection Segment within a Direction Modifier for more information.