In this work we study how the presence of social groups affects emergency evacuations. This investigation was carried out in the context of the Social Force Model (SFM). We added an attractive force to the SFM, which accounts for the affective feelings that the members of social groups share (colleagues, friends, couples, etc.). We calibrated this force using experimental data, in order to simulate emergency evacuations. We observe that the evacuation time is considerably worsened when attractive feelings are taken into account. Therefore, we conclude that this kind of collective behavior should be included in pedestrian dynamics models.
This research explores the dynamics of the emergency evacuation during the "Running of the Bulls" festival (Spain, 2013). As people run to escape from danger, many pedestrians stumble and fall down, while others will try to pass over them. We carefully examined three specific recordings of the running, that show this kind of behavior. We developed a microscopic model mimicking the stumbling mechanism in the context of the Social Force Model (SFM). In our model, "moving" individuals can suddenly switch to a "fallen" state when they are in the vicinity of a fallen individual. We arrived to the conclusion that the presence of a fallen pedestrian increases dramatically the falling probability of the pedestrians nearby. Also, the product between the local density gradient and the velocity of each pedestrian appears as a relevant indicator for an imminent fall. We call this the pedestrian "falling susceptibility (f s )".
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