Emergency evacuation with incomplete information in the presence of obstacles

Abstract Pedestrians can be modeled as self-driven particles influenced by “social forces” in emergency evacuation scenarios. It has been suggested by recent studies that placing an obstacle near the exit can boost evacuation efficiency. Here we consider the situation that pedestrians are not acquainted with the evacuation environment, that is, pedestrians cannot specify the location of the exit. By dividing the evacuation space into different areas, the improved “social force model” was adopted to compare the path selection and evacuation tactic of pedestrians under the condition of complete and incomplete evacuation information. The simulations reveal that the total evacuation time depends on complex elements, such as the desired velocity, parameters of obstacle. There are some optimal values of these factors resulting in the minimum value of total evacuation time. Moreover, we also consider that when pedestrians are not fully aware of the evacuation information, the pedestrians flow rate is not necessarily altered by the presence of an obstacle. As the value of the pedestrian perception range increases, evacuation efficiency will be enhanced. When the value of perception range exceeds a certain threshold, the evacuation efficiency is contingent on the distance between pedestrians and the door. More importantly, we explore how to improve evacuation efficiency under these settings. We hope to offer some insights into effective emergency evacuations.