Bentley Systems has announced its acquisition of London-based pedestrian simulation software provider LEGION.
Revealed at the company’s Year in Infrastructure 2018 Conference in London, the acquisition augments Bentley Systems’ modelling environment with digital workflows to explore different pedestrian traffic scenarios within public spaces, such as train stations.
The company’s software already supports more than half of the world’s 40 largest transit agencies and offers modelling for scenarios such as interaction of pedestrians with each other and with physical obstacles, circulation and evacuations within public spaces like railway stations, airports, sports arenas, and tall buildings, and pedestrian and vehicle interactions.
LEGION founder Douglas Connor said pedestrian flows should be considered fundamental design criteria for infrastructure assets like train stations or airports.
“We’re excited to join with Bentley to provide designers, engineers, and owners with pedestrian simulation applications that are integrated with market leading design modeling offerings,” he said.
“Next, we can advance LEGION’s “Science in Motion” vision to incorporate pedestrian simulation quite cohesively—from the strategic and capital planning of an infrastructure project, throughout its design, subsequent retrofits, and into asset operations.”
Using LEGION with Bentley System’s OpenBuildings Designer, for instance, enables engineers and asset owners to consider pedestrian traffic in their ‘conceptioneering’ and design alternatives.
The acquisition also complements the newly announced OpenBuildings Station Designer product from the global software solutions provider.
Samya Ghosh, Head – Urban Space and Regional Director – Transportation (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa) at AECOM says the company’s urban space team based in the UK has been using LEGION software for more than 10 years and welcome its integration with Bentley Systems’ offerings.
“The LEGION software is widely accepted among clients for pedestrian micro-simulation modelling which our professionals use to analyse and inform designs and masterplans,” he says.
“In our recent projects, it has been increasingly important to integrate the pedestrian modelling with BIM and in this respect, I consider the merger of Bentley and LEGION will open up a huge potential.”
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