Search

To explore companion movement laws of different age groups and transfer rules of panic emotion during evacuation at subway stations, evacuation groups of different ages were distinguished in this study through differences in movement rate. Moreover, a double-exit subway cellular automaton evacuation model considering companion behaviours was constructed. A case study of evacuation of dense crowds at the Hukou Subway in Wuhan City of China was simulated, and effects of personnel structure, companion behaviours, and panic emotion on evacuation efficiency were analysed. Results show that, (1) the overall crowd evacuation time present a linear growth trend with the increase of pedestrian density. (2) The evacuation time initially decreases and then increases with the increase of companion ratio. The shortest evacuation time is achieved when the companion cells account for 10 %. (3) People are more reasonable and the general evacuation efficiency is higher if they can control emotions better during evacuation. The obtained conclusions provide great references to analyse companion behaviours of different age groups during evacuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]