Modeling and Simulating Household Evacuation Behaviors for Evacuation Time Estimates

Abstract

Evacuation network clearance time estimates (ENCTEs) is one of the most important issues in the emergency evacuation. Previous studies assumed that families in the risk area evacuated directly, and calculated ENCTEs on the basis of peak populations. However, actually families, even if trapped in danger and panic, tend to unite prior to the evacuation. Additionally, a part of residents have evacuated before the official warning. Thus the study combines the effects of earlier evacuation and gathering behaviors and makes concentrate on the latter, and under the predictable disaster conditions build two linear integer programming models for selecting the family's meeting location and meeting trip chains to describe their special behaviors. Finally using the simulation software Starlogo, ENCTEs in four scenarios, adding the considerations of earlier evacuation behaviors, are compared and analyzed. The experiment results indicate that both earlier evacuation and families' gathering behaviors show significant impact on ENCTEs, and therefore, should not be ignored.