zModeling human factors influencing herding during evacuation
Authored by Kashif Zia, Alois Ferscha, Muzna Zafar, Dinesh Kumar Saini, Arshad Muhammad
Date Published: 2017
DOI: 10.1108/ijpcc-03-2017-0024
Sponsors:
No sponsors listed
Platforms:
NetLogo
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
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Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
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Abstract
Purpose - It has been witnessed that many incidents of crowd evacuation
have resulted in catastrophic results, claiming lives of hundreds of
people. Most of these incidents were a result of localized herding that
eventually turned into global panic. Many crowd evacuation models have
been proposed with different aspects of interests. The purpose of this
paper is to attempt to bring together many of these aspects to study
evacuation dynamics.
Design/methodology/approach - The proposed agent-based model, in a
hypothetical physical environment, uses perception maps for routing
decisions which are constructed from agents' personal observations of
the surroundings as well as information gathered through distant
communication. Communication is governed by a trust model which measures
the authenticity of the information being shared. Agents are of two
types; emotional and rational. The trust model is combined with a
game-theoretic model to resolve conflict of agents' own type with that
of types of agents in the neighborhood.
Findings - Evacuation dynamics in different environmental and exit
strategies are evaluated on the basis of reduced herding and evacuation
time. Using this integrated information sharing model, agents gain an
overall view of the environment, sufficient to select the optimal path
towards exits with respect to reduced herding and evacuation time.
Originality/value - The proposed model has been formulated and
established using an agent-based simulation integrating important
modeling aspects. The paper helps in understanding the interplay between
technological and humanistic aspects in smart and pervasive
environments.
Tags
Simulation
Crowd evacuation
modeling
herding
Model
crowd
Guidance
Ambient intelligence