Emergency Evacuations of Social Groups

Abstract

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.