An emergency aircraft evacuation simulation considering passenger emotions

Abstract

The evacuation behavior of passengers was formulated as an autonomous agent and multi-agent model (AAMAS) evolving over a two-dimensional grid cell that represents aircraft cabins and passengers. In this model, the autonomous agents are initially placed in seat squares and move toward an emergency exit after an aircraft accident occurs. The autonomous agent mimics the behavior of passengers in the cabin, who must not only view their surroundings to collect the useful information but also select a route to an emergency exit. As the situation evolves, the agents feel the mental stress or strong fear or anxiety; thereby reacting unfavorably in the situation that they panic at. This abnormal evacuation behavior of panic agents generates time delays in the evacuation flow towards the exits. Therefore, such panic and its effect on evacuation behavior should be considered as an important factor in evacuation simulations. In this paper, it is supposed that the level of panic depends on three factors: remaining time, frequency of waiting and the difficulty of finding an exit. The dependencies of these factors on the time needed to complete an evacuation and the number of the panic agents in the aircraft were determined by the simulation. Considering the simulation results and situations of the actual aircraft accident “Garuda Indonesia Airways Accident”, it was possible to develop aircraft evacuation scenarios that considered passenger emotions.