Pedestrian Evacuation from Networks: A Feedback Control Approach

An organized evacuation of pedestrians entrapped in a building, in emergencies such as those caused by fire, bomb blast, intentional or unintentional release of toxins in buildings etc., is of utmost importance. The focus of this book is on the development of a formal control methodology for an orderly and jam-free evacuation of pedestrians entrapped in a network of corridors in buildings in such emergency situations. To develop an effective solution, the pedestrian evacuation from a network of corridors is divided into two basic problems of flow routing and flow control. In this study the solutions of these two basic problems are developed. Concepts are applied from the disciplines of control engineering, operations research and transportation engineering to come up with novel ideas which model the critical aspects of the emergency evacuation scenario. While capturing the emergency egress situation appropriately these ideas are purposely kept simple enough to provide insights for practical applications.