From Drivers to Athletes -- Modeling and Simulating Cross-Country Sking Marathons

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 $\textit{Vasaloppet 2012}$ Using the multi-model open-source simulator MovSim.org, we simulate all 15 000 participants of the Vasaloppet during the first ten kilometers.