A proposed model and application for pedestrian evacuation time calculation in road tunnels

In order to accurately calculate pedestrians' evacuation time and provide a theoretical basis for reasonable design of evacuation routes in tunnelsꎬ an innovative empirical model was proposed to calculate evacuation time in road tunnelsꎬ which considered influence of parameters like distanceꎬ movement speedꎬ tunnel widthꎬ occupant flow and traffic volume. In this modelꎬ critical conditions of exit cloggingꎬ its start time and duration were all taken into consideration. Thenꎬ with a real underwater tunnel as an exampleꎬ influence of occupant density and their movement speed on evacuation time and exit clogging was analyzed after different horizontal or vertical escape routes were setꎬ and rules of equivalent setting space of 中 国 安 全 科 学 学 报 China Safety Science Journal 第30卷 2020年 horizontal and vertical routes were proposed. The results show that pedestrians' evacuation time is affected by their walking speed to different degrees in the event of different (horizontal / vertical) routesꎬbut it is closely related with occupant density. And evacuation capacity of horizontal routes is significantly greater than that of vertical ones under the same condition.