Evacuation simulation of heterogeneous passengers in the confined carriage of high-speed train

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Passenger evacuation in high-speed train carriages is a critical issue that has not been fully explored and understood in previous research. To investigate the evacuation process of passengers from the confined carriage, a fine-grid cellular automaton model considering passenger heterogeneity is proposed in this paper. The influences of passenger attributes, luggage-carrying behavior, exit width and window evacuation mode on evacuation dynamics are analyzed under various scenarios. The simulation results reveal that the evacuation efficiency decreases with the increase of the proportion of elderly passengers in the carriage. The evacuation time increases with the increment of luggage-carrying proportion and duration time of luggage collection. Passengers carrying luggage near the inner door can easily block the aisle. Therefore, appropriately increasing the width of the inner door can reduce exit congestion and facilitate the evacuation process. Furthermore, the evacuation efficiency is the highest when the escape window is located in the middle of carriage for only one window exit. For the two window exits conditions, the escape windows are uniformly distributed in the middle of carriage is more favorable for evacuation. The study is useful to design evacuation plans for passenger flow and improve the emergency management level of high-speed railway stations.