Abstract

Numerous models have been developed for estimating the time required to evacuate from a variety of places under various conditions. For high-traffic places, such as commercial and industrial buildings, it is vital to be able to accurately calculate the evacuation time required in order to ensure the safety of the occupants. To this end, various models of pedestrian dynamics have been proposed, either as a whole system or focusing only on the psychological interaction between pedestrians. However, most of these published studies do not take into account the pedestrian’s ability to select the exit route in their models. To resolve these issues, we have developed a model to simulate evacuations from a hall using the social force model that incorporated with the degree of pedestrians’ impatience along with the distance to exits and the density of the crowd, in determining pedestrians’ selection of evacuation routes. For validation, the results obtained with the proposed model are compared with published data. Finally, the model is applied to predict a specific adjustment to the hallway that would improve the output of the system. Simulations show that reasonable improvement is achieved, with an additional 14.2% pedestrians being evacuated within a 12 min interval.

Key words: Social force model, exit route selection, crowd dynamic, density effect, intelligent agent.