Simulation and evaluation of strategies for emergency evacuation of high-density crowds

Sammanfattning: It is of great importance to be able to quickly evacuate big crowds from venues such as concert arenas. This paper investigates and compares three different strategies for emergency evacuation of big crowds, based on frequently occurring phenomenons in evacuation, namely: To go for the closest possible emergency exit, to go for the main exit, meaning the way you came in, or to go for an emergency exit you have been given before the need for evacuation arises. The closest and main exit strategies are based on a study using real subjects. Studies also show that alternative exits are often overlooked: we propose the "designated exit"-strategy in an attempt to fix this. These strategies are tested on three models based on real concert arenas using a Unity based crowd simulation. Our results and discussion show that the "main exit"-strategy performs the worst of the three. On average, the "closest exit"-strategy performs the best out of the three, but not always. In some cases it is faster to use the "designated exit"-strategy, for instance when an arena is half-full with people that are standing close to the stage and there exists emergency exits on the opposite wall from the stage. The simulation may however not be reliable enough to get realistic results, so our results may not apply in the real world. Comparison with studies on real evacuations is needed to say for certain.