Multi-Agent Simulation on Staff Evacuation Behavior in Elderly Nursing Home Fire Emergencies

Abstract

Elderly nursing homes in South Korea are vulnerable to evacuation in emergency situations such as fires. There are many elderly residents with reduced self-walking ability, so if a disaster such as a fire occurs, it is very likely to lead to a large number of human injuries. In elderly nursing homes, it is impossible for many elderly people to evacuate voluntarily without the help of staff. Therefore, it is very important to guide the behavior of staff when evacuating. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of evacuation behavior of staff on evacuation time in a fire emergency in an elderly nursing home by adopting an agent-based simulation approach. The effect of staff evacuation behavior on the evacuation time was investigated based on the results of a new agent-based evacuation simulation model. In the simulation model, there are conditions for caregivers to designate and evacuate the elderly, as well as to set the evacuation priority for the elderly. The results of this study show that having the elderly occupants designated by the staff according to their zones and evacuating them together was the most important in reducing the evacuation time. This study contributes to a new agent-based evacuation simulation model by confirming whether the evacuation behavior of employees affects the evacuation time.

Pedestrian Simulation on Evacuation Behavior in Teaching Building of Primary School Emergencies and Optimized Design

“…With the development of computer technology and the rise of artificial intelligence, the multi-agent model is also gradually being favoured by scholars. The microscopic model is mainly applied to building emergency evacuation behaviour [17,18] and pedestrian leisure behaviour, including shopping behaviour [19], visiting behaviour [20] and leisure-walking behaviour [21].…”

“…Pedestrians move according to physical rules, while considering the interaction between them and surrounding facilities, which has a dual analytical effect of both individual and organizational aspects. Anylogic is a mature and widely used pedestrian behaviour platform [17,65] that has the following characteristics: (1) The pedestrian database model is rich and diverse. There are various modelling elements and intelligent agent libraries within Anylogic, including pedestrian databases.…”

“…Design analysis of public space layout in Shanghai waterfront based on agent pedestrian flow simulation Sidi et al[27] Waterfront scale Waterfront Simulated traffic congestion in Sarawak scenic area at the tourist attraction spot of Kuching Waterfront, using an interactive map, to help visitors plan their visit way Lim et al[17] Building scale Elderly nursing homes Evaluate the effect of evacuation behaviour of staff on evacuation time in a fire emergency in an elderly nursing home Wang et al[28] Building scale Nursing home…”

Modeling of Safe Evacuation Conditions at the Construction Site for Building Type “I”

“…Zou et al [20] proposed fire safety management measures by simulating and studying the smoke dispersion and evacuation of people in a dormitory building fire. Most of the fire risk assessment studies have been conducted between high-rise buildings [21][22][23][24][25], hospitals [25][26][27][28][29], schools [30,31], shopping malls [32,33], and nursing homes [34,35]. Due to the nature of buildings under construction, the fire risk differs greatly from most existing buildings.…”