From June 16 to 19, 2026, the international conference Traffic and Granular Flow 2026 (TGF'26), hosted by the University of Bristol, United Kingdom, was successfully held in Bristol. The Traffic and Granular Flow (TGF) conference series is a prestigious international forum dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of traffic systems, pedestrian dynamics, granular flows, and complex collective phenomena. Since its inception, TGF has brought together physicists, engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians from across the globe, and has become one of the most influential conference series in the fields of transportation science and pedestrian flow modeling.

Associate Professor Wei Xie from the Sichuan University – The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction (IDMR) attended the conference and delivered an oral presentation entitled "Balancing Efficiency and Equity: Fire Evacuation Dynamics of Heterogeneous Populations in Multi-Story Elderly Care Facilities." The presentation reported the team's latest research on fire evacuation in elderly care facilities using coupled fire dynamics simulation and agent-based evacuation modeling. Key findings revealed that conventional efficiency-led evacuation protocols produce a hidden discriminatory structure against high-dependency residents, and that vulnerability-oriented strategies combined with mixed occupant distribution and zoned elevator dispatch can substantially improve safety outcomes for the most vulnerable groups without compromising overall evacuation performance. This work highlights the Institute's ongoing research commitment to urban safety and disaster risk reduction for vulnerable populations in the context of global aging.

During the conference, Wei Xie also engaged in academic exchanges with scholars from the University of Tokyo, Delft University of Technology, University of Bristol, University of Hong Kong, and Tsinghua University, discussing frontier topics in pedestrian dynamics, evacuation modeling, and urban safety. These interactions further strengthened the international visibility and academic network of IDMR's research in urban safety and disaster management.

Conference website: https://tgf26.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/