Humanitarian engineering approach for re-designing pedestrian traffic inside the lecture building during the new normal COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 has brought a massive impact on people’s daily activities, office workers have implemented “Working from Home” (WFH), an elementary school to high school students have implemented “Study from Home” (SFH), as well as Campus academic communities’ activities’ implementing Learning from Home. This circumstance has changed daily human behavior for a year. In 2021, upon the completion of a global vaccination program, the situation is followed by a change in the pattern of daily living activities towards “a new normal”, in which direct human interaction is reinstated while still fulfilling health protocols, one of the actions is social distancing. This study examined the detection of pedestrian traffic for the academic community of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning (DURP), Brawijaya University and predicted certain crowds’ spots in the DURP building, using Computer Vision and the integration of Agent-Based Model and Geographical Information Systems Indoor. Furthermore, alternative designs for pedestrians were carried out in the DURP building to prevent the occurrences of crowds in certain spots. The results obtained are that on the 1st Floor of the DURP building, the West and East entrance paths have high traffic, so it is necessary to arrange for the opening of the Southside door as an alternative for pedestrian access. Likewise, for the 2^nd Floor, the opening of the south gate contributes to minimizing crowd spots. All in all, the blended learning process through face-to-face learning at students grades 1 and 2, then online learning at students grades 3 and 4 might minimize the potential Covid-19 transmission facing a new normal higher education learning process.

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