An Overview of Crowd Evacuation Simulation

2009

In this paper an approach using agents for handling the emergency route simulation is presented. It takes into account the problem of uncharacteristic actions of an unsettled group of people in case of heavy stress given by a local disaster. The algorithm is an extension of the Boids simulation method with additional rules to better accommodate the human crowd evacuation behavior.

It is an important issue that all occupants should be able to evacuate to safety from large public buildings under fire conditions. In this paper, a system simulation model is presented, in which a physical model and a mathematical model are included. Based on the agent technology, a computer program is developed to simulate and analyze the egress progress in large public buildings through combining rule reasoning with numerical calculation, and some crowd pedestrian flow phenomenon, such as aching, rerouting, etc, could be observed from visual illustration of the scenarios. By coupling with the fire scenario simulated by CFD technology, the computer simulation program may represent the overall and dynamic process of occupants' evacuation under fire expansion, and the mutual relationship between occupants' safety and fire hazard. An indoor stadium which was used as a competition venue for 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is studied as a case.

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling, 2019

The agent-based modelling is used for modelling many complex dynamic systems, especially those including autonomous individuals such as human beings' societies, animals' societies, robots, insects' societies, etc. Evacuation systems such as those needed for supermarket buildings are considered as complex dynamic systems. In these systems, we have to deal with the problem of rescuing a high number of people of different ages, sex, physical characteristics, etc. Furthermore, this process mostly runs in buildings with different constraints like locations of the rows of shelves, exit gates, etc. On one hand, in order to deal with disasters such as fire propagation, studying this kind of system using a dynamic model has a great importance in order to avoid the maximum of casualties. On the other hand, the model that represents this kind of system must take into account several factors such as time, the building's characteristics and people's characteristics. In this study, an agent-based model has been designed to visualise the dynamic system behaviour via these internal entities that often interact. Additionally, we use some dynamic data mining methods such as Monte Carlo method to calculate the stable characteristics of this model via probabilistic approach.

2013

In recent years crowd modeling has become increasingly important both in the computer games industry and in emergency simulation. This paper discusses some aspects of what has been accomplished in this field, from social sciences to the computer implementation of modeling and simulation. Problem overview is described including some of the most common techniques used. Multi-Agent Systems is stated as the preferred approach for emergency evacuation simulations. A framework is proposed based on the work of Fangqin and Aizhu with extensions to include some BDI aspects. Future work includes expansion of the model's features and implementation of a prototype for validation of the propose methodology.

Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics 2008, 2009

In this paper, an evacuation simulation method is presented, which is embedded in a CFD based fire modelling programme. The evacuation programme allows the modelling of high crowd density situations and the interaction between evacuation simulations and state-of-the-art fire simulations. The evacuation process is modelled as a quasi-2D system, where autonomous agents simulating the escaping humans are moving according to equations of motion and decision making processes. The space and time, where the agents are moving, is taken to be continuous, but the building geometry is discretized using fine meshes. The model follows each agent individually and each agent has its own personal properties, like mass, walking velocity, familiar doors, etc. The fire and evacuation calculations interact via the smoke and gas concentrations. A reaction function model is used to select the exit routes. The model is compared to other evacuation simulation models using some test simulations.

Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGSIM Conference on Principles of Advanced Discrete Simulation

Hajj is one of the largest mass gatherings where Muslims from all over the world gather in Makah each year for pilgrimage. A mass assembly of such scale bears a huge risk of disaster either natural or man-made. In the past few years, thousands of casualties have occurred while performing different Hajj rituals, especially during the Circumambulation of Kaba (Tawaf) due to stampede or chaos. During such calamitous situations, an appropriate evacuation strategy can help resolve the problem and mitigate further risk of causalities. It is however a daunting research problem to identify an optimal course of action based on several constraints. Modeling and analyzing such a problem of real-time and spatially explicit complexity requires a microscale crowd simulation and analysis framework. Which not only allows the modeler to express the spatial dimensions and features of the environment in real scale, but also provides modalities to capture complex crowd behaviors. In this paper, we propose an Agent-based Crowd Simulation & Analysis framework that incorporates the use of Anylogic Pedestrian library and integrates/interoperate Anylogic Simulation environment with the external modules for optimization and analysis. Hence provides a runtime environment for analyzing complex situations, e.g., emergency evacuation strategies. The key features of the proposed framework include: (i) Ability to model large crowd in a spatially explicit environment at real-scale; (ii) Simulation of complex crowd behavior such as emergency evacuation; (iii) Interoperability of optimization and analysis modules with simulation runtime for evaluating evacuation strategies. We present a case study of Hajj scenario as a proof of concept and a test bed for identifying and evaluating optimal strategies for crowd evacuation CCS Concepts • Computing methodologies ➝ Modeling and simulation ➝Simulation types and techniques ➝ Agent / discrete models. • Computing methodologies ➝ Modeling and simulation ➝ Simulation support systems ➝ Simulation tools. • Computing methodologies ➝ Machine learning ➝ Machine learning approaches ➝ Bio-inspired approaches ➝ Genetic algorithms. • Computing methodologies ➝ Modeling and simulation ➝ Model development and analysis ➝ Modeling methodologies.

—Applying agent-based modeling to simulate the evacuation in case of emergency situations is recognized by many research works as an efficient tool for understanding the behavior and decision making of occupants in these situations. In this paper, we present our work aiming to modeling the influence of the emotion and social relationship of occupants on their behaviors and decision making in emergency as in case of fire disaster. Firstly, we proposed a formalization of occupants' behavior at group level in emergency situations based on the social theory. This formalization details possible behaviors and actions of people in emergency evacuations, taking into account occupant's social relationship. The formalization will facilitate the construction of simulation for emergency evacuation. Secondly, we modeled the influence of emotion and group behavior on the decision making of occupants in crisis situations. Thirdly, we developed an agent-based simulation that took into account the effect of group and emotion on the decision making of occupants in emergency situations. We conducted a set of experiments allowing to observe and analyze the behavior of people in emergency evacuation.

AI & SOCIETY, 2007

Many computational tools for the simulation and design of emergency evacuation and egress are now available. However, due to the scarcity of human and social behavioral data, these computational tools rely on assumptions that have been found inconsistent or unrealistic. This paper presents a multi-agent based framework for simulating human and social behavior during emergency evacuation. A prototype system has been developed, which is able to demonstrate some emergent behaviors, such as competitive, queuing, and herding behaviors.

Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2019

Crowd simulation is the process of simulating characterized agents or entities using computer application to analyse it in virtual scene or virtual environment. This paper investigates the best route path for agents to act in avoiding the fire hazards with different designated type of stairs in shop lots that were converted to hostel dormitory for students. 3D social force agent’s model and 3D fire hazards were designed in Microsoft Visual Studio C++ software and OpenGL library. A research was conducted using social force model behaviour and were taken by 10 and 15 agents to analyse the time taken to complete the evacuation process. The acceleration produced where it is related with route path taken by agents, interaction forces of agents and interaction forces of wall are the main research system to analyse agents’ behaviour during simulation. Different simulations have been used to determine the best and fastest route taken by agents. In summary, the lower the number of agents, th...