Evacuation Behavior Research Articles

多様な避難行動を想定した大地震時の緊急避難通路の設定手法に関する研究

To restore easily collapsed street networks caused by major earthquakes in urban space, in this research, we put forward a feasible approach to setting an emergency evacuation passages in the case of street blockage among collapsed buildings. More importantly, this approach takes into consideration various evacuation behaviors of all groups including vulnerable people such as the elderly. In addition, evacuation simulations are also conducted to prove the efficiency of the approach and to improve the disaster prevention performance of concerned regions.

The Anticipated Nankai Trough Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan: Determinant Factors of Residents’ Pre-Event Evacuation Intentions

As a countermeasure against M8–9 class Nankai Trough earthquakes, the Japan Meteorological Agency started a service to release “Nankai Trough Earthquake Extra Information (Megathrust Earthquake Alert).” This alert is released after an M8.0 or higher earthquake occurs and the possibility of a subsequent earthquake is evaluated to be higher than usual. This is an innovative attempt at disaster mitigation in Japan as it encourages residents in the predefined area to pre-evacuate for one week when tsunami risk is higher. However, the factors influencing the evacuation behavior of residents are unknown. In this study, we investigated factors contributing to residents’ pre-event evacuation intentions using the hierarchical multiple regression analysis. We focused on the extent to which the recognition of the hazards and risks of the Nankai Trough earthquake and the response to the Extra Information, which are changeable by the local governments’ public relations activities, contributed to pre-event evacuation intentions after controlling for disaster-related general attitude and sociodemographic factors. Further, we paid special attention to residents’ degree of recognition of this information by checking the accuracy of their understanding of whether they lived within the pre-event evacuation area. The results showed that the recognition factors were relevant but less so than the general attitude toward disaster and more so than the sociodemographic factors. In addition, residents’ recognition accuracy was low. Our results suggest that it is important for local governments to make adequate efforts to encourage residents to evacuate.

Subjective individuals' perception during evacuation in road tunnels: Post-experiment survey results.

The aim of the research was to analyse the process of evacuation from the point of view of the individual's perception, behaviour and decision making. The study used a survey method that was conducted during two real-scale evacuation experiments in real road tunnels under smoky conditions. All experiments, with fire scenarios and procedures were very similar to real accident. Respondents' observations and important aspects affecting the evacuation process were verified, including decision-making during evacuation, loss of bearing in smoky conditions and group evacuation. The results indicate that participants in the experiments had started the evacuation due to smoke in the tunnel and fire drill. The evacuees observed decreased visibility on the escape route as well as a loss of bearing in the tunnel when smoke levels were high (extinction coefficient Cs > 0,7 m-1). The participants in the experiment evacuated in a group (when the tunnel infrastructure was unknown and there was no instruction as to what to do) and in twos under the smokiest conditions (extinction coefficient Cs~1.0-1.1m-1). During the experiments, the large impact of herding behaviour and following the group was noticed. The results of such studies based on real-scale evacuation experiments in road tunnels are essential to improve the level of safety in the road tunnel. In the surveys, the participants pointed to important issues related to evacuation, which require particular attention during the design, implementation and acceptance of this type of construction. The results of the study provide a better understanding of the behaviour of evacuees and indicate areas where tunnel infrastructure needs to be improved.

Risk perception and travel behavior under short-lead evacuation: Post disaster analysis of 2020 Beirut Port Explosion

Human-made disasters continue to be the most dangerous of all types of disasters due to their suddenness and unpredictability. This calls for a thorough examination of people’s evacuation behavior due to its impact on the evacuation procedure and its significance for evacuation planning. This study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the decision-making process of residents in case a human-made disaster occurs with an application to Beirut, Lebanon. This study is essential for pre-disaster planning, which mitigates potential damage from such disasters. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), the current study uses the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) framework to explain intention toward evacuation behavior before a human-made disaster in three situations: being at home with all family members, having absent family members, and being at work or university when the event occurs. The findings of this study show that the PADM framework is relevant to explaining evacuation behavior intentions prior to a human-made disaster incident. Results indicate that knowledge perception does not trigger the intended behavior of evacuating immediately in the studied situations. Besides, the results indicate low confidence in the government’s emergency plans and the unreliability of the official government warnings about human-made hazards. Overall, the findings of this study may contribute to a better understanding of evacuation behavior from disasters with less lead warning time. Besides, they may aid the Disaster Risk Management unit of Lebanon in developing emergency evacuation strategies that: understand the public’s evacuation behavior; customize city-specific evacuation logistics; optimize the dissemination of evacuation information.

Analysis of the use of behavioral data from virtual reality for calibration of agent-based evacuation models

Agent-based evacuation modeling represents an effective tool for making predictions about evacuation aspects of buildings such as evacuation times, congestions, and maximum safe building capacity. Collection of real behavioral data for calibrating agent-based evacuation models is time-consuming, costly, and completely impossible in the case of buildings in the design phase, where predictions about evacuation behavior are especially needed. In recent years evacuation experiments conducted in virtual reality (VR) have been frequently proposed in the literature as an effective tool for collecting data about human behavior. However, empirical studies which would assess validity of VR-based data for such purposes are still rare and considerably lacking in the agent-based evacuation modeling domain. This study explores opportunities that the VR behavioral data may bring for refining outputs of agent evacuation models. To this end, this study employed multiple input settings of agent-based evacuation models (ABEMs), including those based on the data gathered from the VR evacuation experiment that mapped out evacuation behaviors of individuals within the building. Calibration and evaluation of models was based on empirical data gathered from an original evacuation exercise conducted in a real building (N = 35) and its virtual twin (N = 38). This study found that the resulting predictions of single agent models using data collected in the VR environment after proposed corrections have the potential to better predict real-world evacuation behavior while offering desirable variance in the data outputs necessary for practical applications.

An evacuation model considering the phototactic behavior of panic pedestrians under limited visual field

In the emergency evacuation process, pedestrians affected by their panic will have evacuation behavior that rushes toward the light. To study the impact of panic pedestrian phototactic behavior on the evacuation process, a multi-model coupled cellular automata model is proposed. First, a heterogeneous model of emotional contagion based on the OCEAN model and the SIS model is established, which considers the influence of individual characteristics such as personality, gender, and age on emotional contagion, and the increase and decay of pedestrian emotion are also correlated with their location. Next, the “guidance field”, “orienteering field”, “herding field” and “phototactic field” are introduced to build an extended cellular automata model, pedestrians in different areas have different movement modes, and pedestrians with different emotional states in the same area also differ. Finally, the phototactic behavior of pedestrians in evacuation is reproduced by simulation, and the effects of factors such as emotional threshold, information transfer, visual field distance, light source position, and multiple light sources interference on the evacuation process are discussed. The results show that whether phototactic behavior is favorable or unfavorable to evacuation depends on the position of the light source. When the light source is located at the exit can guide pedestrians to escape, while located in other places will trigger local congestion. Increases in the emotional threshold, information transfer, and visual field distance can effectively mitigate the adverse effects of phototactic behavior. Additionally, the light sources in other positions will cause some interference with the light sources at the exit when multiple light sources exist, prolonging the evacuation time. Our research can provide some guidance for designing building structures and developing evacuation strategies in emergency situations.

Design a safe firefighting time (SFT) for major fire disaster emergency response

A major fire disaster is hazardous to both occupants trapped in the built environment and firefighters during the firefighting operation. Though various construction codes, technologies, and facilities have enhanced occupants’ evacuation in fire, insufficient effort is made to ensure a safe firefighting and rescue environment for firefighters, and their safety is not effectively guaranteed in the process of firefighting. To fill this gap, this work proposes a new concept of safe firefighting time (SFT) in fire safety design, combining the features of firefighting and evacuation behavior. By referring to the available and required safe egress time, ASFT (Available Safe Firefighting Time) and RSFT (Required Safe Firefighting Time) are defined with detailed calculation methods. As a demonstration, safe firefighting time including ASFT and RSFT is evaluated in a fire safety performance-based design of a tunnel. Apart from fire safety design, SFT could contributes to smart firefighting supported by emerging technologies. The framework for future fire safety design and the research needs in smart firefighting with SFT are discussed combining intelligent approaches such as IoT infrastructures and cloud services. In summary, this study introduces the safe firefighting time and application approaches in fire safety design that extends the current fire-safety design framework and lays a foundation for smart firefighting for engineers, firefighters and policymakers.

An interdisciplinary agent-based evacuation model: integrating the natural environment, built environment, and social system for community preparedness and resilience

Abstract. Previous tsunami evacuation simulations have mostly been based on arbitrary assumptions or inputs adapted from non-emergency situations, but a few studies have used empirical behavior data. This study bridges this gap by integrating empirical decision data from surveys on local evacuation expectations and evacuation drills into an agent-based model of evacuation behavior for two Cascadia subduction zone (CSZ) communities that would be inundated within 20–40 min after a CSZ earthquake. The model also considers the impacts of liquefaction and landslides from the earthquake on tsunami evacuation. Furthermore, we integrate the slope-speed component from least-cost distance to build the simulation model that better represents the complex nature of evacuations. The simulation results indicate that milling time and the evacuation participation rate have significant nonlinear impacts on tsunami mortality estimates. When people walk faster than 1 m s−1, evacuation by foot is more effective because it avoids traffic congestion when driving. We also find that evacuation results are more sensitive to walking speed, milling time, evacuation participation, and choosing the closest safe location than to other behavioral variables. Minimum tsunami mortality results from maximizing the evacuation participation rate, minimizing milling time, and choosing the closest safe destination outside of the inundation zone. This study's comparison of the agent-based model and the beat-the-wave (BtW) model finds consistency between the two models' results. By integrating the natural system, built environment, and social system, this interdisciplinary model incorporates substantial aspects of the real world into the multi-hazard agent-based platform. This model provides a unique opportunity for local authorities to prioritize their resources for hazard education, community disaster preparedness, and resilience plans.

Fault tree analysis for subway fire evacuation with agent-based modeling

In the process of the continuous development of subway construction, the safe evacuation of subway passengers has been paid much attention to. As the subway itself has the characteristics of limited space and high passenger density, once a fire emergency occurs, it can cause huge losses only by passive rescue. Therefore, it is important to actively plan for evacuation to reduce life and property losses due to fires in subways. This study aims to develop a fault tree analysis method for identifying scenarios that lead to evacuation failure in subways due to impassability incurred by fires. First, a virtual evacuation model is established using an agent modeling technique, with collected passenger characteristics to calibrate local evacuation behaviors. Then, fire impassability scenarios (e.g. fire(s) in the escalator(s), in emergency stairs, or the combination) are evaluated using the established agent model. Eventually, a fault tree analysis is constructed to identify scenarios that lead to evacuation failures. The research results show that the passability of escalator(s) is critical for subway fire resilience. It is important to use stationary escalator(s) as evacuation pathways for more evacuation capacity. Fire risk management around escalator(s) should be stricter. Passengers and staff are advised to learn how to stop a running escalator to avoid evacuation failures.

How does social capital influence shadow evacuation behavior under rainstorm disaster in China

A rainstorm disaster occurred on July 20, 2021 in the Henan Province, China, posing a severe threat to residents’ lives and property. During this period, the victims engaged in shadow evacuation behaviors—that is, people who had not received official evacuation instructions or were not in the designated evacuation areas chose to spontaneously evacuate. Social capital refers to resources acquired or mobilized through social connections and relationships; it is a significant factor during all stages of natural disasters. We investigated the relationship between social capital and shadow evacuation.A total of 290 questionnaires were obtained from Fengquan and Weihui in Xinxiang City, Henan Province, China. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, and binary logistic regression analysis using SPSS. The results showed that bonding social capital (p = 0.037 < 0.05, B = 0.347), bridging social capital (p = 0.003 < 0.01, B = 0.520), and linking social capital (p = 0.014 < 0.05, B = 0.390) had significant positive impacts on shadow evacuation behavior. The control variables of living with the disabled or elderly (p = 0.003 < 0.01, B = 0.989) and disaster experience (p = 0.000 < 0.01, B = 1.250) also had positive impacts on shadow evacuation behavior; the demographic variables had a limited impact.

Using virtual reality to study the effect of information redundancy on evacuation effectiveness

AbstractThe International Organization for Standardization evacuation alarm (ISO 8201: 2017) is ineffective in initiating evacuation, particularly when people are engaged in pre‐evacuation activities, and it is not easy to conduct experiments for evaluating evacuation behavior due to ethical and cost issues. A virtual building emergency where alarms went off while participants were performing activities was created to study the effect of redundancy on evacuation effectiveness. Three alarms were studied: (i) a regular nonverbal ISO alarm, (ii) a speech‐inserted ISO alarm, and (iii) a technology‐based ISO alarm concept (sound, visual, and haptic information). Evacuation behavior, perceived urgency, and delay time were measured. Results confirmed the effect of redundancy on measurements, and participants complied better with the speech‐inserted and technology‐based alarms, but there were no differences in evacuation effectiveness between them. Participants perceived higher urgency from the technology‐based solution, which can be more adaptive in complicated environments where background noise and language/education barriers are problems. Otherwise, the speech‐inserted alarm is more cost‐effective.

Human decision change in crowd evacuation: A virtual reality-based study

In complex building evacuations, continuous decision-making is unavoidable to make a sequence of route choices at intersections. Evacuees can change their initial decisions with the environmental context changes to deal with the uncertainties of the evacuation. However, this decision-changing phenomenon in evacuation wayfinding has not been well explained. Therefore, this study investigates the decision-changing behavior in crowd evacuation. The influence of two typical crowd flow modes (i.e., symmetric split and asymmetric split crowd flow) on human decision changes in evacuation wayfinding is explored. The results show that evacuees are likely to change their initial route choice decision under the influence of crowd flows, and asymmetric crowd flow significantly reinforces this trend. Moreover, crowd flow modes significantly affected participants' wayfinding performance, including evacuation time, distance, and speed. This study provides behavioral observations and empirical evidence of the persistent effects of crowd flows on evacuees' wayfinding decisions changing and performance during the evacuation.

Multi-Agent Simulation on Staff Evacuation Behavior in Elderly Nursing Home Fire Emergencies

Elderly nursing homes in South Korea are vulnerable to evacuation in emergency situations such as fires. There are many elderly residents with reduced self-walking ability, so if a disaster such as a fire occurs, it is very likely to lead to a large number of human injuries. In elderly nursing homes, it is impossible for many elderly people to evacuate voluntarily without the help of staff. Therefore, it is very important to guide the behavior of staff when evacuating. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of evacuation behavior of staff on evacuation time in a fire emergency in an elderly nursing home by adopting an agent-based simulation approach. The effect of staff evacuation behavior on the evacuation time was investigated based on the results of a new agent-based evacuation simulation model. In the simulation model, there are conditions for caregivers to designate and evacuate the elderly, as well as to set the evacuation priority for the elderly. The results of this study show that having the elderly occupants designated by the staff according to their zones and evacuating them together was the most important in reducing the evacuation time. This study contributes to a new agent-based evacuation simulation model by confirming whether the evacuation behavior of employees affects the evacuation time.

Mosque is the only visible shelter at the most dangerous time: a qualitative study of the victims’ experience in the MT semeru eruption

To assess the evacuation behaviour of victims during acute natural disaster. The qualitative, phenomenological study was conducted in Lumajang Regency, Indonesia, from December 5 to 12, 2021, and comprised disaster victims who had just been evacuated from the Mount Semeru eruption disaster site. Data was collected using a semi-structured interviews and observations. Data was analysed using Colaizzi's qualitative method. There were 18 subjects aged 19-60 years. They were interviewed in two groups, with the first group having 11(61.1%) subjects and the other 7(38.9%). On the basis of the data collected, 4 themes emerged. The first theme was emphasis on 'evacuation together'. The second theme was 'helping others in need'. The third theme was 'local wisdom passed down through generations'. The fourth theme was 'mosque being the only bright site' which made it the destination of choice for evacuation. Disaster victims remember well the buildings they frequent. This is a good solution for determining shelter points during a disaster. There needs to be a regulation and preparation at the evacuation referral point so that victims may survive during acute disasters.

Effects of Conformity Bias Caused by Evacuation Order on Risk Evaluation

We have found that various cognitive biases would interfere with evacuation behavior during a disaster, and this have caused many casualties. In this study, we focused on the conformity bias, one of the cognitive biases, which is introduced by evacuation order sentences with information about other residences’ behavior, to facilitate evacuation behavior. In the experiment, we presented the evacuation order sentences, and pictures which depict the scene of disaster, or normal situation. Participants evaluated the degree of risk for the picture, and degree of necessity of evacuation from the scene. Our results demonstrated that the conformity bias would facilitate evacuation especially for the low-risk situation. In addition, we found that judgments of the need for evacuation can be predicted by the rating of the degree of danger, disaster experience, sense of crisis about disasters, and the other-personality-orientations of the participants.

Extraction of Factors and Issues that Infl uenced the Evacuation Behavior of Vulnerable People during Heavy Rain Event of July 2018

Extraction of Factors and Issues that Infl uenced the Evacuation Behavior of Vulnerable People during Heavy Rain Event of July 2018

Simulation Study on Emergency Evacuation Behavior of College Students in Considering the Influence of Dormitory Interpersonal Relationship

Simulation Study on Emergency Evacuation Behavior of College Students in Considering the Influence of Dormitory Interpersonal Relationship

A pedestrian evacuation model based on ant colony algorithm considering dynamic panic spread

&lt;p style='text-indent:20px;'&gt;To explain the evacuation behavior characteristics of people in panic, an improved cellular automata pedestrian evacuation model is proposed by combining with the SIS (Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible) epidemic model and ant colony algorithm. First, to explain the spread of panic in dynamic pedestrian evacuation, an improved SIS infection model that considers individual movement is proposed. At the same time, a quantitative formula for panic mood is given. The infection critical value of the SIS model is analyzed by mean field theory. Secondly, the ant colony algorithm is introduced based on considering exit distance, obstacles, panic, and other factors. These factors are mapped with heuristic function and pheromone concentration in the ant colony algorithm. Finally, the evacuation model and parameters such as evacuation time, pedestrian density, and panic spread are analyzed and discussed through simulation experiments. The simulation experiment results show that the evacuation model proposed in this research can better reflect the actual situation. Simultaneously, the critical rate of effective propagation is closely related to the crowd density in the evacuation area, and individual movement has a significant impact on the panic transmission behavior.&lt;/p&gt;

Optimization of Emergency Evacuation Behavior for Sudden High Passenger Flow in Resilient Hubs

Optimization of Emergency Evacuation Behavior for Sudden High Passenger Flow in Resilient Hubs

노인요양시설의 화재 발생 시 연기 유동장과 단위면적에 따른 피난특성에 관한 연구

The analysis of the flow field in the elderly care facility showed that a vertical flow occurred due to vortex and buoyancy near the airflow entrance and fire source on the floor plan. The velocity in the corridor was high due to the location of the smoke window on the floor plan, and the carbon monoxide mass fraction in the fire room was 0.5 or more within 1 minute. In addition, smoke detectors work much faster than heat detectors, but not many places voluntarily install smoke detectors for economic reasons. Therefore, fire safety standards should be revised to the following to reduce damage in elderly nursing facilities: “Smoke detectors must be installed in living rooms and other rooms (treatment rooms or office rooms) used for purposes such as sleeping, lodging, hospitalization for the elderly.”BR The study of evacuation behavior of occupants of elderly care facilities in unit area showed that evacuation was completed in 4 minutes and 43 seconds in small and medium-sized buildings and in 5 minutes and 5 seconds in large buildings. Considering that the initial evacuation started after about 100 seconds, this results in a difference of about 20 seconds for horizontal evacuation, not considering evacuation over several floors. In addition, a comparison with normal populations in large buildings confirmed that the risk exposure time increased sharply with increasing building size, with the elderly taking 1.7 times longer.