Simulation study on the effect of pre-evacuation time and exit width on evacuation

Abstract

Occupant pre-evacuation time is often oversimplified into an explicit value in evacuation calculation. In fact, it is not an explicit value but a random variable following some kind of probability distribution. In order to analyze the importance of pre-evacuation time in evacuation calculation, Grid- Flow evacuation model is utilized to study the effect of pre-evacuation time on evacuation under different occupant densities and exit widths in a single room scenario. The evacuation time calculated by using normal pre-evacuation distribution is compared with that calculated by explicit pre-evacuation time. Two faults are presented when pre-evacuation time is considered as an explicit value. The theory of con- gestion and queue is presented to analyze the cal- culation results. Moreover, this paper also presents probability distribution of the total evacuation time when the pre-evacuation time follows normal distri- bution. The results show that the evacuation time is dominated by pre-evacuation time and hardly de- pendent on occupant density when the mean pre- evacuation time is long. For long mean pre-evacua- tion time, low occupant density or wide exit, when pre-evacuation time follows normal distribution, the total evacuation time also follows normal distribution.