Simulation of pedestrian evacuation in stampedes based on a cellular automaton model

Abstract

Human stampedes have been identified as a major hazard that could occur during pedestrian evacuations around the world. This paper establishes an extended floor field model to study the pedestrian evacuation dynamics during stampedes. The event floor field and a tumble factor are elaborated to describe the influence of stampedes. Different evacuation strategies are proposed to represent the behavioral differences in pedestrians: staying away from the stampede location (S1), following the movement direction of the majority within the perception range (S2), and walking along a wall (S3). We perform numerical simulations to discuss pedestrian evacuation in stampedes. The effects of the pedestrian density, event floor field, stampede location, evacuation strategy, stampede occurrence time and chaos duration on the evacuation efficiency and the number of casualties are analyzed in detail. Our results can provide reference and guidance for developing evacuation strategies for stampedes and reducing casualties.