From drivers to athletes: Modeling and simulating cross-country skiing marathons

Abstract

Traffic flow of athletes in classic-style cross-country ski marathons, with the Swedish Vasaloppet as prominent example, represents a non-vehicular system of driven particles with many properties of vehicular traffic flow such as unidirectional movement, the existence of lanes, and, moreover, severe traffic jams. We propose a microscopic acceleration and track-changing model taking into account different fitness levels, gradients, and interactions between the athletes in all traffic situations. The model is calibrated on microscopic data of the Vasaloppet 2012. Using the multi-model open-source simulator MovSim.org, we simulate all 15,000 participants of the Vasaloppet during the first 10 km.