Two-phase evacuation route planning approach using combined path networks for buildings and roads

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of modeling evacuation routes from a building and out of an affected area. The evacuation route involves pathways such as corridors, and stairs in buildings and road networks and sidewalks outside the building. To illustrate such an approach, we consider the problem of finding evacuation paths from an urban building and out of a predetermined neighborhood of the building on foot. A case study for a college campus building and small set of road around it is provided. There are a pre-defined set of exit points out of the target building and out of the road network serving the building. A two-step approach with an uncapacitated network model for route finding and a capacitated scheduling algorithm for evacuation time computation is proposed. A recent efficient heuristic algorithm is selected as a reference for comparative analysis. The process of creating a combined building and road path network data is discussed. The key results are the competitive evacuation time provided by the proposed uncapacitated route planning model, simple pedestrian flow capacity formulas for corridors and roads from readily available geometric data, and the illustration of the creation and use of combined building and road path network.