A multi-agent based framework for the simulation of human and social behaviors during emergency evacuations

Abstract

IntroductionThis paper presents a multi-agent based framework to simulate human and social behaviors during emergency evacuations. Among the many regulatory provisions governing a facility design, one of the key issues identified by facility managers and building inspectors is safe egress. Design of egress for places of public assembly is a formidable problem in facility and safety engineering. There have been numerous incidents reported regarding overcrowding and crushing during emergency situations [1]. In addition to injuries and loss of lives, the accompanying post-disaster psychological suffering, financial loss, and adverse publicity have long-term negative effects on the affected individuals and organizations -the survivors, the victims' families, and the local communities.Among the many factors including overcrowding and evacuation incidents, researchers have come to realize that understanding human and social behaviors in emergencies is crucial to improve crowd safety in places of public assembly [2][3][4][5][6]. In particular, 'nonadaptive crowd behaviors' are recognized to be responsible for the death and injury of most victims in crowd disasters [7]. Nonadaptive crowd behaviors refer to the destructive actions that a crowd may experience in emergency situations, such as stampede, pushing, knocking, and trampling on others. Studying nonadaptive crowd behaviors in emergency situations is difficult since it often requires exposing real people to the actual, possibly dangerous, environment. A good computational tool that takes into consideration the human and social behavior of a crowd could serve as a viable alternative.Commercially available computational tools for the simulation and design of emergency exits exist. However, most of the current computational tools focus on the modeling of spaces and occupancies but rarely take into consideration of human and

Tutorial on agent-based modelling and simulation

“…Various social phenomena have been investigated using agent-based models that are not easily modelled using other approaches (Macy and Willer, 2002;Gilbert and Troitzsch, 2005). Theoretical applications include social emergence (Sawyer, 2005), the emergence of cooperation (Axelrod, 1997), the generation of social instability (Epstein, 2002), and the collective behaviour of people in crowds (Pan et al, 2007). Sakoda (1971) formulated one of the first social agent-based models, the Checkerboard Model, which relied on a cellular automaton.…”

Incorporating Social Behaviors in Egress Simulation

“…This work extends a multi-agent based framework, MASSEgress, which is designed to model and to implement human and social behaviors in emergency evacuation (Pan 2006;Pan et al 2007). In the simulation, each individual is modeled as an autonomous agent who interacts with other agents.…”

“…By capturing certain individual psycho-social parameters, decision-making models, etc., MASSEgress was able to demonstrate the ability of the multi-agent based framework for simulating some common emergent social behaviors such as those shown in Figure 3 (Pan 2006;Pan et al 2007). One objective of this work is to extend the MASSEgress framework to include additional group level social behavioral models: group influence, following members with better knowledge of the environment and seeking group members.…”

Sistem Simulasi Evakuasi Kebakaran Berbasis Multi Agen

“…Meskipun tidak sepenuhnya dapat meniru situasi nyata, permodelan secara praktis dapat meminimalkan berbagai konsekuensi negatif akibat pelaksanaan drill sekaligus memberikan masukan dan wawasan untuk penguatan strategi penyelamatan [2] dan permodelan simulasi dapat melakukan test keilmiahan teori dan hipotesis, melakukan tes strategis dalam mendesain dan melakukan pembuatan ulang phenomena berkaitan dengan teori [4].…”