Modelling Emergency Evacuation of Classroom with Different Age Profiles
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17815/CD.2020.96Keywords:
emergency evacuation, classroom, total evacuation time, pedestrian flow characteristics, experimentsAbstract
Evacuation characteristics of pedestrians can be captured under two different conditions - one in immediate and another in non-immediate. The safe and quick evacuation of pedestrians from a building in any situation depends on pedestrian and building characteristics. Understanding the behaviour of pedestrians in emergency situations such as earthquake or fire accident helps in designing buildings for safe evacuation. In view of the limited research on this problem in the Indian subcontinent, this study aims to capture the pedestrian flow characteristics in emergency situations by conducting several experiments in a classroom environment. As a part of the experimental study, the students were instructed to behave as if they were in an emergency evacuation situation. Data was collected on pedestrians with different age profiles such as high school, under graduate and post graduate students considering various scenarios that includes different door widths. Several factors such as number of pedestrians, width of the door, average age of the pedestrians, Body Mass Index, proportion of females, number of students and classroom capacity are considered and their influence on evacuation characteristics was analysed. Based on the observations, an evacuation model has been developed using least square error method. Results show that the variables such as door width and number of students are crucial in representing evacuation time of the classroom. It was found that the relationship between total evacuation time (TET) and door width is represented by power function. This is contrast to the findings of existing literature which shows that the relationship between flow and door width is linear. Our results are best supported by the fact that the TET is exponentially varying with door width till a particular value and remains constant for further increase in door width which is realistic in nature. It is anticipated that the results of the study would provide guidelines to various agencies on managing evacuations. This can also lead to suggestions on optimization of layouts while designing various building access facilities in an academic environment.References
X.Yang, Z.Wu and Y.Li, “Difference between real-life escape panic and mimic exercises in simulated
situation with implications to the statistical physics models of emergency evacuation: The 2008
Wenchuan earthquake,” Phys. A Stat. Mech. its Appl., vol.390, no.12, pp.2375-2380, 2011.
W.Daamen and S. Hoogendoorn, “Calibration of Pedestrian Simulation Model for Emergency Doors
for Different Pedestrian Types,” Proc. Trans. Res. Board 91st Ann. Meet., Washington D. C., USA,
S.Heliövaara, J. M.Kuusinen, T.Rinne, T.Korhonen and H.Ehtamo, “Pedestrian behavior and exit
selection in evacuation of a corridor–An experimental study,” Saf. Sci., vol.50, no.2, pp.221-227, 2012.
L. Chen, R. Y. Guo and N.Ta, “Simulation and experimental results of evacuation of pedestrian flow in
a classroom with two exits,” Acta Phy. Sin., vol.62, Issue (5): 050506, 2013. doi:
7498/aps.62.050506
M. Li, Y.Zhao, L.He, W.Chen and X.Xu, “The parameter calibration and optimization of social force
model for the real-life 2013 Ya’an earthquake evacuation in China,” Saf. Sci.,vol. 79, pp.243-253, 2015.
G.Bernardini, E.Quagliarini, and M. D’Orazio, “Towards creating a combined database for earthquake
pedestrians’ evacuation models,” Saf. Sci., vol.82, pp.77-94, 2016.
A.Cuesta, and S. M. V. Gwynne, “The collection and compilation of school evacuation data for model
use,” Saf. Sci., vol. 84, pp.24-36, 2016.
A.Nicolas and N.Marcelo, “Influence of selfish and polite behaviours on a pedestrian evacuation
through a narrow exit : A quantitative characterisation,” arXiv : 1608 . 04863v2 [ physics . soc-ph ],
vol.18. 2016.
Z. Gu, Z.Liu, N.Shiwakoti, and M.Yang, “Video-based analysis of school students’ emergency
evacuation behavior in earthquakes,” Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct., vol.18, pp. 1-11, 2016.
W.Li, Y.Li, P.Yu, J.Gong, S.Shen, L.Huang and J.Liang , “Modeling, simulation and analysis of the
evacuation process on stairs in a multi-floor classroom building of a primary school,” Phys. A Stat.
Mech. its Appl., vol.469, pp.157-172, 2017.
Y.Han, and H.Liu, “Modified social force model based on information transmission toward crowd
evacuation simulation,” Phys. A Stat. Mech. its Appl.,vol.469, pp.499-509, 2017.
M. K Singh, H.K.Gaddam, L.D.Vanumu, and K.R.Rao. “Traffic Data Extraction Using MATLAB®
Based Tool,” TPMDC Int. Conf., IIT Bombay, 2016.
R Core Team. R: “A language and environment for statistical computing,” R Foundation for
Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. 2015. URL https://www.R-project.org/.
W. Liao, A.Tordeux, A.Seyfried, M.Chraibi, K.Drzycimski, X.Zheng, and Y.Zhao, “Measuring the
steady state of pedestrian flow in bottleneck experiments,” Phys. A Stat. Mech. its Appl, vol.461,
pp.248-261, 2016.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Lakshmi Devi Vanumu, Aditya Arya, Hari Krishna Gaddam, K. Ramachandra Rao
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors contributing to Collective Dynamics agree to publish their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
This license allows:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Authors retain copyright of their work. They are permitted and encouraged to post items submitted to Collective Dynamics on personal or institutional websites and repositories, prior to and after publication (while providing the bibliographic details of that publication).
