Agent-Based Simulation and Analysis of Human Behavior towards Evacuation Time Reduction

Human factors play a significant part in the time taken to evacuate following an
emergency. An agent-based simulation, using the Prometheus methodology (SEEP
1.5), has been developed to study the complex behavior of human (the ‘agents’) in
high-rise buildings evacuations. In the case of hostel evacuations, simulation results
show that pre-evacuation phase takes 60.4% of Total Evacuation Time (TET). The
movement phase (including queuing time) only takes 39.6% of TET. From sensitivity
analysis, it can be shown that a reduction in TET by 41.2% can be achieved by
improving the recognition phase. Exit signs have been used as smart agents.
Expanded Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) was used to determine the feasible
evacuation routes. Both the ‘familiarity of environment’ wayfinding method, which is
the most natural method, and the ACO wayfinding, have been simulated and
comparisons made. In scenario 1, where there were no obstacles, both methods
achieved the same TET. However, in scenario 2, where an obstacle was present, the
TET for the ACO wayfinding method was 21.6% shorter than that for the ‘familiarity’
wayfinding method.