Dual effects of guide-based guidance on pedestrian evacuation

Ma, Yi; Lee, Eric Wai Ming; Shi, Meng

doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2017.03.050

Cited by 46 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Often in studies and federal guidelines, evacuation plans are presented by mainly stating the optimal proportion of guides [15,[34][35][36][37][38]. We do not think such rules guarantee an efficient evacuation other than in very simple situations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minimization of Mean-CVaR Evacuation Time of a Crowd using Rescue Guides: a Scenario-based Approach

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In case of a threat in a public space, the crowd in it should be moved to a shelter or evacuated without delays. Risk management and evacuation planning in public spaces should also take into account uncertainties in the traffic patterns of crowd flow. One way to account for the uncertainties is to make use of safety staff, or guides, that lead the crowd out of the building according to an evacuation plan. Nevertheless, solving the minimum time evacuation plan is a computationally demanding problem. In this paper, we model the evacuating crowd and guides as a multi-agent system with the social force model. To represent uncertainty, we construct probabilistic scenarios. The evacuation plan should work well both on average and also for the worst-performing scenarios. Thus, we formulate the problem as a bi-objective scenario optimization problem, where the mean and conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) of the evacuation time are objectives. A solution procedure combining numerical simulation and genetic algorithm is presented. We apply it to the evacuation of a fictional passenger terminal. In the mean-optimal solution, guides are assigned to lead the crowd to the nearest exits, whereas in the CVaR-optimal solution the focus is on solving the physical congestion occurring in the worst-case scenario. With one guide positioned behind each agent group near each exit, a plan that minimizes both objectives is obtained.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minimization of Mean-CVaR Evacuation Time of a Crowd using Rescue Guides: a Scenario-based Approach

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…e result showed that the walking speed of pedestrians increased only when the installation interval of signs was smaller than one step of pedestrians. Ma et al [26,27] applied the extended social force model to study the influence of guidance on pedestrian evacuation simulation, and the simulation result showed that guidance could improve evacuation efficiency when the pedestrian density of the neighborhood field was moderate. In order to optimize escape paths in the earthquake, Bernardini et al [28] proposed a Seismic Pedestrians' Evacuation Dynamic Guidance Expert System.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation and Optimization for the Staircase Evacuation of a Cruise Ship Based on a Multigrid Model

Cai

2021

Mathematical Problems in Engineering

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A cruise ship is a large public place, and it is very important to ensure the safety of passengers during the evacuation process in case of an emergency. This paper proposes a method to improve evacuation efficiency on cruise ships by controlling passengers’ density. According to the construction of the staircase, the space of the staircase is divided into the step and landing areas. On the basis of considering the influence of passengers’ view field and moving characteristics of passengers, the moving rules of passengers in two areas are established. Taking staircases of the cruise ship as the evacuation scenario, the evacuation process is simulated by using the established model. From simulation results, it is found that numbers of evacuated passengers between staircases are very unbalanced and too many passengers gather in one staircase, which lead to serious congestion. By controlling passengers’ density in stairs areas, the minimum evacuation time is the optimization objective and the optimization model is established by using the quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm and genetic algorithm. The optimization results show that the evacuation time is significantly shortened when the passenger’s density on the staircase is kept within an appropriate range, which proves that the evacuation efficiency can be effectively improved by controlling the passengers’ density.

show abstract

“…With the development of modern technology especially in the aspect of imaging process, communication networks, and IOT technologies, some evacuation assistants (or equipments) can be adopted in the (computer-aided) evacuation process for providing accurate route or exit information to the evacuees and hence help (guide) them to escape as efficiently as possible. In the related works with guiding behaviors [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34], Yang et al [27] are the first ones that claimed the necessity of using guides (dynamic leaders) in the evacuation process, whereas the effects of leadership in single-exit rooms were investigated in [28] with limited visible range. The authors in [28] further stated that the guiding behavior may yield a negative effect when too many pedestrians are neighbor to the leader.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of density control in partially observable asymmetric-exit evacuation under guidance: Strategic suggestion under time delay

Gao¹,

Yan²,

Chen³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To enhance the evacuation efficiency in partially observable asymmetric-exit evacuation, a general framework of dynamic guiding assistant system with density control algorithm is investigated. In this framework, several evacuation assistants are established to observe the partial information of pedestrians' location and adjust the guiding signals of the dynamic guiding assistant systems. A simple on-off-based density control algorithm is proposed for the evacuation assistants according to the delayed data of the observed information (i.e., pedestrian densities in the observed regions near the corresponding exits). By involving a force-driven cellular automaton model, the strategic suggestions on how to set the observed region and the target density are given in this paper. It is observed that the proposed density control algorithm can control (positively affect) the global distribution of the pedestrians' locations and suppress arching phenomena in the evacuation process even using the observed partial information under time delays. By imposing a moderate target density, the dynamic guiding assistant system also suppresses the triggers of collisions around the exits and avoids separating the pedestrians to an inefficient way. We reveal an interesting fact without loss of generality that to enhance the evacuation efficiency, we only need to observe the pedestrians' location from a small region near the exit instead of a large region when the time delay of the observed information is small enough. Our numerical findings are expected to provide some new insights on designing the computer-aided guiding strategies in the real evacuations.

show abstract

Dual effects of guide-based guidance on pedestrian evacuation

Cited by 46 publications

References 38 publications

Minimization of Mean-CVaR Evacuation Time of a Crowd using Rescue Guides: a Scenario-based Approach

Minimization of Mean-CVaR Evacuation Time of a Crowd using Rescue Guides: a Scenario-based Approach

Simulation and Optimization for the Staircase Evacuation of a Cruise Ship Based on a Multigrid Model

Effect of density control in partially observable asymmetric-exit evacuation under guidance: Strategic suggestion under time delay

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About