Abstract
Exit choice is vital to pedestrians’ survival during evacuations. This paper presents the results of a VR experiment and a field experiment to study pedestrian exit choice behaviour during evacuations. Primarily, we compared pedestrian exit choice behaviour with a VR experiment and a field experiment to determine the ecological validity of a particular VR simulator (smartphone-based HMD and 360° video) as a research tool to study pedestrian exit choice behaviour. The results showed that the pedestrians’ exit choice behaviour during the evacuation is similar in the field experiment and the VR experiment. Furthermore, we investigated whether and to what extent different types of information (i.e., exit signs, directional signs, presence of people) influence pedestrian exit choice during evacuations. The analysis focused on the commonalities and differences in the pedestrians’ exit choice behaviour between the scenario without additional information and three scenarios with different types of information. The comparison between scenarios with different types of information illustrated that the presence of other pedestrians and directional signs have a significant influence on the participants’ exit choice. Moreover, the results indicated that this VR simulator is applicable to study pedestrian exit choice behaviour during evacuations.
Highlights
IntroductionPedestrians usually face multiple exits and need to choose which of the exits to use (Heliovaara et al, 2012)
When evacuating a building, pedestrians usually face multiple exits and need to choose which of the exits to use (Heliovaara et al, 2012)
This paper investigates pedestrian exit choice behaviour during evacuations using both Virtual Reality (VR) experiments and field experiment
Summary
Pedestrians usually face multiple exits and need to choose which of the exits to use (Heliovaara et al, 2012). If participants got sick during this period, they were allowed to have a break, and after the break they could decide whether to continue or quit the experiment Up to this moment, predominantly three experimental methods have been used to study pedestrian exit choice behaviour during evacuations, including traditional methods such as field observations in real life, traditional controlled experiments, VR experiments and surveys. Imanishi and Sano (2019) and Rahouti et al (2020) analysed evacuees’ movements during evacuation drills in a theatre and a hospital respectively, featuring pedestrian route and exit choice These studies illustrate that field observations can be a valuable experimental method to understand exit choice behaviour in the real world because pedestrians are more likely to behave naturally. It would be difficult for researchers to set up field observa tions to investigate how external variables (e.g., signage) influence pedestrian exit choice behaviour during evacuations
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