Likely behaviours of passengers under emergency evacuation in train station

Abstract

This paper explores the likely behaviours of train passengers in an emergency evacuation and examines four crucial theoretical issues on the passengers’ evacuation, including reactive vs. proactive behaviours, cooperative vs. competitive behaviours, symmetry breaking, and route/exit choice.A survey of 1134 train passengers shows that respondents are not homogeneous in their likely behaviours. Overall, they are more likely to be reactive (e.g., wait for instruction from station staff) than proactive (e.g., move to exit) in an emergency situation. We also find that people are more likely to be co-operative (e.g., helping other people) than competitive (e.g., push other passengers). Although passengers are likely to show herding or symmetry breaking behaviour (e.g., following other passengers) than symmetric behaviour (e.g., choose least crowded exit), the degree of symmetry breaking behaviour is not as high as assumed in previous mathematical models. They are also unlikely to use escalators, lifts and train tunnels in their exit/route choice during an emergency escape. In terms of demographic differences in behaviours, results from the ordered logit models demonstrate that there are significant differences in the evacuation behaviours between males and females but not among the different age groups.Besides providing valuable information for developing mathematical models intended to simulate passengers’ evacuation in a train station, our findings can assist managers of emergency response in developing appropriate strategies and training, and in designing solutions and education campaigns for effective evacuation.