Behavioral Model of Pedestrian Dynamics under Emergency Evacuation Scenarios
From a social science perspective it is useful to think of the evacuation behavior during emergencies, commonly referred to as emergency egress and ingress, as having three distinct analytical dimensions: the physical environment from which to evacuate, the managerial policies and controls deployed at evacuation, and the psychological and social organizational characteristics impacting the persons that participate in the movement. It is much more common in the physics and engineering literature to find direct consideration of the first two dimensions than of the third. The social science literature provides an extensive coverage of the impact of the latter dimension on the emergence of consensus in collectivities, albeit not necessarily at evacuation. This body of knowledge can be put to great use by architects, engineers and computer scientists alike in determining the outcomes of evacuation processes.
The proposed study explores the application of cellular-automata to the micro-simulation of environmentally-constrained and managed pedestrian motions during routine operations and emergency evacuations. It addresses the essence and the interactions of all three pre-cited dimensions of the pedestrian evacuation behavior through a multidisciplinary effort. Such multi-disciplinary exchange of information can premise the beginning of highly beneficial and enduring collaborations between concerned disciplines. The need for a social science study of crisis evacuation is particularly keen nowadays as terrorist threats have increased. Study results will be interpreted in light of accumulated knowledge on the sociology of disasters, allowing for the provision, to local and federal government agencies as well as private organizations, of a useful blueprint to follow during crisis evacuations. This provision of guidance is an important benefit to society, as it improves disaster response programs at the local, state and federal levels.
