Conflict game in evacuation process: A study combining Cellular Automata model

Abstract

The game-theoretic approach is an essential tool in the research of conflicts of human behaviors. The aim of this study is to research crowd dynamic conflicts during evacuation processes. By combining a conflict game with a Cellular Automata model, the following factors such as rationality, herding effect and conflict cost are taken into the research on frequency of each strategy of evacuees, and evacuation time. Results from Monte Carlo simulations show that (i) in an emergency condition, rationality leads to “vying” behaviors and inhibited “polite” behavior; (ii) high herding causes a crowd of high rationality (especially in normal circumstances) to become more “vying” in behavior; (iii) the high-rationality crowd is shown to spend more evacuation time than a low-rationality crowd in emergency situations. This study provides a new perspective to understand conflicts in evacuation processes as well as the rationality of evacuees.