Search

The study of fire simulation and emergency evacuation in cruise ships is a challenging aspect of cruise safety research. Investigating the impact of fire byproducts on passenger evacuation is a critical issue that urgently needs to be addressed. This paper utilizes PyroSim 2022 software to establish five fire cases, analysing the fire products concentration under each case. The influence of fire products on passenger evacuation was analysed using PathFinder. The results showed that when the fire source is in the stage area, the impact of fire byproducts on passenger evacuation is relatively minor. However, when the fire source is near the exit, especially in cases 1 and 2, fire byproducts tend to accumulate in the right area of the second floor, significantly affecting passenger evacuation. Moreover, during the evacuation process, a large number of passengers exhibit herd behaviour, leading to some passengers being unable to evacuate safely. To address the congestion issue, an optimized evacuation guidance plan is proposed, that can effectively improve evacuation efficiency and reduce the average congestion time per person. This has a positive role in enhancing the safety level of cruise ship fires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To prevent the hangar fire from seriously threatening people's life safety and provide a better experimental platform for fire evacuation research, an evacuation simulation model of a large civil hangar based on Pathfinder was establishesd. According to the real human body parameters, the attributes of gender, height, shoulder width, and moving speed are set, and the evacuation path and evacuation time are obtained by computer simulation. According to the simulation results of Pathfinder, the Unity3D engine was used to build the virtual reality environment, interactive design, and Agent model, and the virtual reality emergency evacuation simulation system of the hangar was developed. In the group evacuation simulation sub-module, the evacuation of 8 different fire locations was simulated. In the single evacuation exercise sub-module, 10 testers were invited to select 6 different initial positions in the hangar virtual environment, and 5 rounds of evacuation tests were carried out. The results show that the simulation results in the virtual reality environment are close to the Pathfinder simulation results, which verifies the effectiveness of the virtual reality evacuation simulation system. After two to three rounds of practice, the evacuation time of the tester in the single evacuation drill is shortened and tends to be stable. It is verified that the virtual reality evacuation drill system can help users improve their emergency evacuation ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of South Architecture / Nanfang Jianzhu is the property of South Architecture Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article considers the specific fire hazards of rolling stock and equipment in double track underground tunnels. Examples of major fires in underground tunnels in different countries have shown that the most complicated and catastrophic fires are associated with rolling stock in the tunnel. It is noted that fires in double track tunnels are characterised by the spread of fire hazards in one volume of the tunnel and can lead to the simultaneous stoppage of two electric trains. For the modelling of the fire evolution and its hazard factors, as well as for the development of evacuation measures in double track tunnels, it is recommended to consider the following design accidents: rolling stock fire and tunnel fire.

During super high-rise construction, there are many fire-starting factors with higher fire hazards and higher evacuation risks. In order to study the occurrence of fire in super high-rise construction and the evacuation in the corresponding situation, taking the construction site of the Zhaoping Business Centre project as an example, the neural network was used to predict the fire-starting materials of the fire. The fire simulation was carried out to get the simulation data of the fire smoke and the temperature by fire dynamics simulator(FDS). Taking fire, panic and the construction environment into account, the evacuation of construction workers was studied by Pathfinder. The results show that the most probable fire-starting material in this case is insulation. The main factors affecting evacuation during fire are temperature and visibility. The evacuation time of evacuees changes from 324 s to 419 s after being affected by panic, fire and construction environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Available hospital evacuation simulation models usually focus on the movement of the evacuees while ignoring the crucial behavioural factors of the evacuees' which impact the simulation results. For instance, the issue of patient prioritization behaviour during evacuation simulation is often overlooked and oversimplified in these models. Furthermore, to control the movement of the evacuees, almost all these models utilize rule-based artificial intelligence to develop navigation systems, which sometimes do not guarantee realistic and optimal movement behaviour. This research aims to address these problems by modelling feasible and novel solutions. In this research, we propose to develop a hospital evacuation simulation model which utilizes a hybrid of fuzzy logic and reinforcement learning to simulate assisted hospital evacuation using the Unity3D game engine. We propose a novel and effective approach to model patient prioritization using a fuzzy logic controller; a reinforcement learning based navigation system to tackle the issues related to the rule-based navigation system by proposing novel reward formulation, observation formulation, action formulation and training procedure. The results and findings exhibited by the proposed model are found to be in line with the available literature. For instance, available literature suggests that an increased number of patients increases the evacuation time, and an increased number of staff or exits decreases the evacuation time. The proposed model also demonstrates similar findings. Moreover, the proposed navigation system is found to take a "near shortest distance" to reach the target as the mean difference between "shortest vector distance" and "distance covered" is approximately 1.73 m. The proposed simulation model simulates the repeated patient collection more realistically and can be used to estimate the Required Safe Egress Time, which enables the establishment of safety performance levels. The evacuation performance of different scenarios can be compared using the proposed model. This research can play a vital role in future developments of hospital evacuation simulation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evacuation simulation is an important method for studying and evaluating the safety of passenger evacuation, and the key lies in whether it can accurately predict personnel evacuation behavior in different environments. The existing models have good adaptability in building environments but have weaker adaptability to personnel evacuation in civil aircraft cabins with more obstacles and stronger hindrances. We target the narrow seat aisle environment on airplanes and use a BP neural network to establish a continuous displacement model for personnel evacuation. We compare the simulation accuracy of evacuation time with the social force model based on continuous displacement and further compare the similarity of personnel evacuation process behavior. The results show that both models were close to the experimental values in simulating evacuation time, while our BP neural network evacuation model based on experimental data was more accurate in predicting the personnel evacuation process, showing more realistic details such as the probability of conflicts and bottleneck evolution in the cross aisle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on a large-scale cruise ship as the subject of research, with a particular emphasis on conditions not covered in the MSC.1/Circ.1533 guidelines. The investigation explores the impact of specific motion states of the cruise ship, including rolling, heeling, and trimming, on passenger evacuation times. Based on the maritimeEXODUS tool, simulations were conducted to replicate the evacuation process in these unique scenarios. The results of the simulations highlight a significant correlation between the cruise ship's motion state and evacuation time. Specifically, under inclination conditions, evacuation times were extended, with bow trimming leading to a notable increase in the time. This study underscores the importance of considering the motion state of a cruise ship in evacuation procedures, confirming the validity of the numerical simulation for studying large-scale cruise ship evacuations under inclination and rolling conditions. The findings contribute valuable insights for enhancing safety protocols and optimizing ship arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building fires are a major hazard to residents, first responders, and the structural system. Rapid spread can impede evacuation, resulting in human fatalities. However, studying occupant characteristics in a burning building is unrealistic and unethical. Hence, the current data-gathering techniques employed in evacuation simulation models have constraints when capturing occupant attributes. To address these constraints, The study introduces a novel method of serious gaming that combines Building Information Modelling (BIM) with an occupant characteristics simulator with varying mobility capabilities depending on age, gender, and physical ability, using Unity3D, to simulate fire growth and evacuation duration for residential buildings with and without emergency requirements. The study reveals that occupant characteristics significantly affect evacuation time, and implementing emergency requirements can improve evacuation efficiency in fire-exposed residential buildings by up to 100%. Implementing emergency requirements reduced mortality rates from 50% to 0%, suggesting that simulation results can be used to improve building design and emergency needs assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of fire simulation and emergency evacuation in cruise ships is a challenging aspect of cruise safety research. Investigating the impact of fire byproducts on passenger evacuation is a critical issue that urgently needs to be addressed. This paper utilizes PyroSim 2022 software to establish five fire cases, analysing the fire products concentration under each case. The influence of fire products on passenger evacuation was analysed using PathFinder. The results showed that when the fire source is in the stage area, the impact of fire byproducts on passenger evacuation is relatively minor. However, when the fire source is near the exit, especially in cases 1 and 2, fire byproducts tend to accumulate in the right area of the second floor, significantly affecting passenger evacuation. Moreover, during the evacuation process, a large number of passengers exhibit herd behaviour, leading to some passengers being unable to evacuate safely. To address the congestion issue, an optimized evacuation guidance plan is proposed, that can effectively improve evacuation efficiency and reduce the average congestion time per person. This has a positive role in enhancing the safety level of cruise ship fires.

In this study, a real-time tsunami estimation method was developed using the linear superposition of Green's functions, which account for nonlinear tsunami effects around coastal areas. To this end, first, the nonlinear effects associated with the inundation and bottom friction and advection terms in a nonlinear long-wave model were investigated, focusing on large tsunamis around Urado Bay in Kochi Prefecture, Japan, which is at risk of future damage from tsunamis produced by the Nankai Trough earthquake. The results indicate that the effects of advection play a more significant role than those of the inundation and bottom friction in terms of accurately estimating near-shore tsunami propagation. Then, based on these results, Green's functions were modified to account for the linearly approximated effects of the advection terms. By applying the developed method to tsunamis around Urado Bay, it was demonstrated that accurate estimations of the water surface level and flow velocity changes could be quickly obtained at any location around the bay. The developed method can be applied to real-time tsunami inundation forecasting and off-shore evacuation simulations of vessels to support optimal evacuation decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan is one of the countries in the world where natural disasters occur most frequently. Typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and many other natural disasters occur in Japan every year, and the risks are immeasurable. Japan is especially prone to earthquakes because of its location on the North American Plate, Eurasian Plate, Pacific Plate, and Philippine Sea Plate. Preparation for a Nankai Trough earthquake is one of the most important issues. A Nankai trough earthquake is predicted to occur with a probability of 70–80% within 30 years. Accordingly, a tsunami of more than 10 ms is expected to hit a wide area along the Pacific coast from the Kanto region to the Kyushu region, and the impact is expected to be significant. When a tsunami warning is issued, an evacuation support system that provides information on evacuation sites and routes enables faster and safer evacuation actions. In a previous study conducted in our laboratory, we proposed an evacuation support system using Low-Power Wide-Area communications and conducted a simulation to find ways to improve the evacuation support system. However, the simulation was insufficient in that it did not consider delays in evacuation completion time due to road congestion caused by limited road width, which can be expected in an actual disaster. In our current research, as an improvement to make the simulation more realistic for further developing our evacuation support system, we propose a simulation that considers road width. We examined how adoption of this simulation methodology would affect the simulation results by comparing simulations that did and did not consider road width. As a result, the proposed method showed a lower percentage of completed evacuations than the previous simulation, especially for children and the elderly. The reason for this result is that when evacuations begin simultaneously, crowding occurs as people all rush to evacuation centers. This congestion on the roads near evacuation centers prevents people from completing their evacuations. Such a phenomenon is expected to occur not only in simulations but also on actual roads. For this reason, our proposed simulation method that considers road width is a more realistic simulation. Since evacuations by car in the event of a disaster also occur, a future issue is to simulate car congestion as well. Furthermore, simulating what would happen if a disaster made a road impassable is also important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an enhanced floor field model (FFM) to analyze the behavioral characteristics of crowds with varying attributes proportions during evacuation. This model governs pedestrian movement through the Dynamic Floor Field (DFF) and the Static Floor Field (SFF). The DFF takes into account individual factors such as the gender, familiarity with the environment, and social relationships of evacuees, which influence safe evacuation. Concurrently, the SFF encapsulates the impact of environmental factors like obstacles, exits, and guidance effects. Subsequently, this refined FFM was applied and validated using a sports center evacuation scenario. The results demonstrated that the enhanced FFM accurately replicated evacuees' asymmetric behavior and queuing, and aligned well with other models when the number of evacuees fluctuated over time. In the absence of guidance, both environmental familiarity and gender emerged as primary factors influencing partial evacuation. Additionally, the gender of pedestrians significantly affected the overall evacuation. Notably, compared to pre-existing environmental information available to evacuees, the implementation of guidance to augment pedestrians' environmental familiarity resulted in a more efficient evacuation. The FFM model and these findings could be instrumental in simulating personnel evacuation and formulating emergency management strategies in crowded areas.

The Life Safety Model (LSM) is an agent-based model which assists with emergency planning and risk assessments for floods and dam failures by providing estimates of fatalities and evacuation times. The LSM represents the interactions of agents (i.e. people, vehicles, and buildings) with the floodwater. The LSM helps to increase the accuracy of estimates of loss of life and evacuation times for these events by taking into account a number of parameters which are not described in empirical models, such as the people's characteristics (e.g. age and gender), building construction types, and the road network. The LSM has been applied to three historic flood-related disasters: the 1953 coastal floods, in the UK; the 1959 Malpasset Dam failure, in France; the 2019 Brumadinho tailings dam disaster, in Brazil. These illustrate how the LSM has been verified and improvements to evacuation routes, early warnings, and the refuge locations could have reduced the number of fatalities. The value of using the LSM is not to calculate the ‘exact’ number of flood deaths or evacuation times, but to assess if emergency management interventions can significantly reduce them. The LSM can also be used to assess whether the societal risk posed by dams and flood defences is ‘acceptable’. HIGHLIGHTS Novel agent-based model which allows interactions of people, buildings, and vehicles with the floodwater to be modelled.; Model can be used to assess emergency management interventions for floods and dam failures and provide quantitative estimates of the risks to people.; Summary of the use of the model for three historic events including Malpasset and Brumadinho dam failures, and the 1953 coastal flood in the UK.;

ObjectivesEvacuation analysis is essential for the design and safety assessment of cruise ships. In this study, a fine-grid-based evacuation model is developed to accurately simulate personnel behaviors and evacuation rules during the cruise ship evacuation process.MethodsFirst, some key algorithms of the model are given: the deck spaces are defined as two kinds of areas, the target area and the functional area, divided into 0.1 m × 0.1 m grids to accurately describe the internal spatial layout and arrangement. Next, personnel movement rules are developed by introducing the parameters of the expected movement direction and movement tendency of passengers, and two rules of path planning are established, namely, the free option of the shortest path and the specified shortest path. Finally, a cruise evacuation case is simulated and the results are compared with datasets from a semi-unannounced trial of the EU Safeguard Project. ResultsThe results show that the evacuation model developed herein meets the requirements of the four validation metrics ERD, EPC, SC, TAT%. The times of the overall assembly process and each assembly station are well compliant with the experimental data, and the relative error of the overall assembly time is about 4.9%. Compared with the simulation results of commercial software EXODUS, the calculation results of the model developed herein are more in line with the experimental data. ConclusionsThe proposed fine-grid model for cruise evacuation simulation can improve the design of escape routes and optimization of evacuation plans.

Squares in the urban historical built environment are public open spaces prone to the risk of terrorist acts, essentially because they are ideal soft targets and attract significant user densities. Risk assessment methods should consider how users behave in them, both before and during an accident (i.e., the evacuation process). In addition to squares’ morphology and layout, and considering that urban areas are more and more prone to the effects of increasing temperatures, outdoor climate conditions can alter the initial scenario. In fact, such conditions can lead users to gather in specific outdoor areas, where they can look for shadows and shelter. This work hence proposes a simulation-based approach to assess how differences in users’ behaviours in response to increasing temperatures and squares’ morphology can alter the risk of terrorist acts in an emergency evacuation. An agent-based model is developed to simulate the interactions between users, hazards and the historical built environment. The work considers four typological squares prone to terrorist acts since they host a special building attracting users in front of it. These squares are derived from the analysis of Italian historical contexts within the BE S2ECURe project. Users are generated in the public open space (thus, before the terrorist act) depending on the intended uses of the square and on the outdoor temperature, which is affected by the square’s morphology. Three different users’ behaviours are modelled to consider (or not) the effects of the outdoor temperature on users’ thermal acceptability levels in an increasing temperature situation. Then, two evacuation scenarios are simulated: (a) a general evacuation process, without attackers, as the baseline for the risk assessment; and (b) an armed assault with cold weapons, to define one of the most probable attack situations in open spaces. Evacuation performance indicators are developed to assess users’ risk. Preliminary verifications demonstrate the capabilities of the approach. The results show that higher differences in evacuation indicators are noticed in large and asymmetric squares, since their conditions highly affect the variability of users’ behaviours in response to increasing temperatures. At the same time, stronger safety behaviours in response to increasing temperatures could reduce emergency issues because they allow users to be more dispersed and initially placed farther from the attack area. Decision-makers could take advantage of the proposed approach and simulation tool, moving towards an effectiveness analysis of solutions to increase the thermal comfort of users in respect of the risk levels during an evacuation. Finally, applications to real-world scenarios are thus encouraged to compare such idealized results with effective conditions.

The simulation of the authentic evacuation process is conducive to accurately evaluate the casualties of buildings under earthquake. This study improves the traditional cellular automata model to simulate the crowd evacuation process in buildings under earthquake. The modified model simulates the attraction of exits to crowds, herd behavior of crowds, avoidance behavior for obstacles, decision-making behavior for paths/exits selection, and conflict between pedestrians in the evacuation process. Based on the video, which records authentic evacuation under earthquake, the influence coefficients of each factors are determined. In addition, the modified cellular automata model uses the refined cellular space to describe the geometric dimensions of the evacuation environments and obstacles, and therefore it improves the accuracy of the evacuation model. The explicit finite element method is used to simulate the seismic damage process of structural and non-structural components. The judgment criterion of casualties which combines the finite element model with the evacuation model, is proposed. The number and distribution of casualties are predicted based on the criteria. Finally, a seven-story official building with reinforced concrete frame structure located in Dujiangyan City, Sichuan Province, China is considered as example to verify the rationality and applicability of the proposed method.

Evacuation simulation is an important method for studying and evaluating the safety of passenger evacuation, and the key lies in whether it can accurately predict personnel evacuation behavior in different environments. The existing models have good adaptability in building environments but have weaker adaptability to personnel evacuation in civil aircraft cabins with more obstacles and stronger hindrances. We target the narrow seat aisle environment on airplanes and use a BP neural network to establish a continuous displacement model for personnel evacuation. We compare the simulation accuracy of evacuation time with the social force model based on continuous displacement and further compare the similarity of personnel evacuation process behavior. The results show that both models were close to the experimental values in simulating evacuation time, while our BP neural network evacuation model based on experimental data was more accurate in predicting the personnel evacuation process, showing more realistic details such as the probability of conflicts and bottleneck evolution in the cross aisle.

This study focuses on a large-scale cruise ship as the subject of research, with a particular emphasis on conditions not covered in the MSC.1/Circ.1533 guidelines. The investigation explores the impact of specific motion states of the cruise ship, including rolling, heeling, and trimming, on passenger evacuation times. Based on the maritimeEXODUS tool, simulations were conducted to replicate the evacuation process in these unique scenarios. The results of the simulations highlight a significant correlation between the cruise ship’s motion state and evacuation time. Specifically, under inclination conditions, evacuation times were extended, with bow trimming leading to a notable increase in the time. This study underscores the importance of considering the motion state of a cruise ship in evacuation procedures, confirming the validity of the numerical simulation for studying large-scale cruise ship evacuations under inclination and rolling conditions. The findings contribute valuable insights for enhancing safety protocols and optimizing ship arrangements.

Squares in the urban historical built environment are public open spaces prone to the risk of terrorist acts, essentially because they are ideal soft targets and attract significant user densities. Risk assessment methods should consider how users behave in them, both before and during an accident (i.e., the evacuation process). In addition to squares' morphology and layout, and considering that urban areas are more and more prone to the effects of increasing temperatures, outdoor climate conditions can alter the initial scenario. In fact, such conditions can lead users to gather in specific outdoor areas, where they can look for shadows and shelter. This work hence proposes a simulation-based approach to assess how differences in users' behaviours in response to increasing temperatures and squares' morphology can alter the risk of terrorist acts in an emergency evacuation. An agent-based model is developed to simulate the interactions between users, hazards and the historical built environment. The work considers four typological squares prone to terrorist acts since they host a special building attracting users in front of it. These squares are derived from the analysis of Italian historical contexts within the BE S2ECURe project. Users are generated in the public open space (thus, before the terrorist act) depending on the intended uses of the square and on the outdoor temperature, which is affected by the square's morphology. Three different users' behaviours are modelled to consider (or not) the effects of the outdoor temperature on users' thermal acceptability levels in an increasing temperature situation. Then, two evacuation scenarios are simulated: (a) a general evacuation process, without attackers, as the baseline for the risk assessment; and (b) an armed assault with cold weapons, to define one of the most probable attack situations in open spaces. Evacuation performance indicators are developed to assess users' risk. Preliminary verifications demonstrate the capabilities of the approach. The results show that higher differences in evacuation indicators are noticed in large and asymmetric squares, since their conditions highly affect the variability of users' behaviours in response to increasing temperatures. At the same time, stronger safety behaviours in response to increasing temperatures could reduce emergency issues because they allow users to be more dispersed and initially placed farther from the attack area. Decision-makers could take advantage of the proposed approach and simulation tool, moving towards an effectiveness analysis of solutions to increase the thermal comfort of users in respect of the risk levels during an evacuation. Finally, applications to real-world scenarios are thus encouraged to compare such idealized results with effective conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, performance-based fire-protection design is used for the fire-safety design of public amenities with restrained personnel activities. In these places, tourists' activities are constrained in a limited space such as cockpit moving along the track. Since it is another typical scenario of fire-protection problem that cannot fully comply with the current mandatory codes and regulations, simulation analysis is used in order to ensure that such fire scenario could achieve performance objectives as expected. Firstly, corresponding fire-protection performance objectives, strategies and simplified evaluation criteria are brought forward in this paper. Then, through simulating the smoke flow in the fire using the computational fluid dynamics software FDS, the effectiveness of the smoke control strategy is verified. Meanwhile, the escaping environments of these fire scenes are analyzed. Further, the personnel evacuation simulation software (Pathfinder) is resorted to simulate the personnel emergency evacuation. The efficiency and the total time that consumed are obtained. Finally, by analyzing the similarities and differences of evacuation under different fire scenes, the fire and smoke spread in the riding area can be effectively controlled, and a safe evacuation environment can be provided for the evacuation of tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimodal transportation hubs serve as transfer points with the function of collecting, transferring, and distributing passengers and play a significant role in the entire multimodal transportation network. In an emergency, the development of an effective and efficient emergency evacuation strategy to evacuate passengers from multimodal transportation hubs is very important. This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive review on passenger emergency evacuations from multimodal transportation hubs, summarize the achievements, identify gaps in existing literature, thus to lay a solid foundation for future studies. This paper first reviewed studies on evacuee behavior characteristics in emergency evacuations, including pedestrian characteristics, pedestrian behavior characteristics, and pedestrian flow characteristics. Then evacuation models, including pedestrian evacuation models and multimodal transportation evacuation models, were investigated. In addition, a retrospective analysis was carried out for evacuation simulation. It is found that while many studies have been conducted on passenger emergency evacuations from multimodal transportation hubs, most of them focus more on evacuating pedestrians from inside to outside of hub buildings; the studies on evacuation at multimodal transfer points are limited. It is also found that most existing studies tried to establish a general model to handle all types of emergency evacuations; in fact, a model would be more efficient if it is just established for a specific emergency and for a specific type of hubs. Also, existing data collection methods may collect biased data; new data collection methods need to be explored to increase the accuracy of data collection. Future study directions include the evacuation at multimodal transfer points, interactive effects between individual pedestrian behavior and pedestrian group behavior, more specific types of emergency evacuations, more accurate data collection methods, and tradeoffs between cost and benefit in emergency evacuations.

China's university dormitories have high population densities, which can result in a large number of casualties because of crowding and stampedes during emergency evacuations. It is therefore important to plan properly for evacuations by mitigating the effect of choke points that create backlogs ahead of time. Accurate computer representations of the structure of a building and behavior of the evacuees are two important factors to obtain accurate evacuation time. In this paper, Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) are, respectively, implemented using the Unity platform to simulate the evacuation process. As a case study, the layout of a student dormitory building at Shanghai Normal University Xuhui District, Shanghai, China, is utilized along with the A* algorithm in Unity to explore the impact of evacuation speed and delays in creating choke points. Compared with previous research, the innovation of this study lies in: (1) using Unity software to make simulation of the physical environment both realistic and easy to implement, demonstrating Unity can be a well-developed platform to implement ABM-BIM research that focuses on crowd evacuation. (2) Using these simulations to evaluate different degrees of congestion caused by varying evacuation speeds, thus providing information about possible issues relating to evacuation efforts. Using the results, several recommended measures can be generated to help improve evacuation efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this situation, it is necessary to establish and manage a SIP (Shelter In Place) by utilizing existing facilities rather than increasing the number of evacuation facilities. These facilities can be used for their general purposes and used as a SIP during emergencies. This study uses BIM software to model a light rail station and examine the elements of the facility that can affect the evacuation time to reach SIP. The purpose is to understand how structural standards affect the design of SIP using direct simulation. The study compares how domestic standards differ from overseas standards and validate whether the national standards are satisfactory. Since the proposed procedure is based on rational human behavior analysis through direct simulation, it is expected to be a safer and faster mode of evacuation in case of CBRE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Explosive attacks) situations if applied to existing infrastructure.

Route choice is a complex issue in simulating individual behaviors and reproducing collective phenomena during evacuations. A growing concern has been given to the individual cognitive mechanism to investigate how routing decisions are made in specific situations. However, the essential role of multiple spatio-temporal scales has not been completely considered in the current cognitive frameworks, which leads to the inaccuracy of cognition representation in evacuation decisions. This study proposes a novel spatio-temporal cognitive framework integrated with multiple spatio-temporal scales for individual route choice. First, a complete spatio-temporal cognitive mechanism is constructed to depict the individual evacuation cognition process. Second, a spatio-temporal route choice strategy that emerges from agent-based simulation and extends into the spatio-temporal potential field is designed to represent the overall time-varying cost along routes in individual subjective estimation. Finally, a spatio-temporal A* algorithm is developed for individual optimal route planning in complex outdoor evacuation scenarios. The experimental results show that the proposed framework outperformed the conventional potential field model in evacuation performance, in both objective crowd evacuation evaluation metrics and individual subjectively estimated evacuation cost in cognition, and may provide more insights on crowd evacuation management and guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimal location of emergency shelters is essential for boosting the evacuation efficiency and resilience of cities. For determining evacuation demands and residents' evacuation allocations, a two-stage model for the optimization of shelter site that utilizes high-precision day and night population data derived from mobile signalling has been developed. In the initial phase, static network analysis served as the foundation for identifying the site arrangements with the smallest number of additional shelters via the enhanced set-covering model. The second-stage optimization determines the best location scheme with the minimum evacuation time using a modified social force model, along with the population's spatial heterogeneity, age structure, and evacuation route selection. Xinjiekou was chosen to assess evacuation efficiency. The utilization rates of shelters and the amount of congestion on the roads before and after optimization are assessed. The outcome demonstrated a 76.5% reduction in evacuation time, a vast improvement in the usage efficiency of shelters, and a significant reduction in congestion along the evacuation route. This method of location optimization marks a break from the usual empirical top-down research paradigm in favor of a bottom-up numerical simulation of the real evacuation process, which satisfies all local residents' and government's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study spread of smoke from a possible fire in a University building and the evacuation time of occupants were simulated. Fire dynamic simulations (FDS) have been done for natural and forced smoke evacuation with different scenarios; at the same time, evacuation simulations have also been done for various scenarios for different exits at the building. While occupants move through changing CO, CO2, and O2 concentrations, Fractional Effective Dose (FED) was gathered to obtain results from both simulations. FED results were evaluated for poisoning risk of occupants. According to comparative results, the combination of scenarios that forced smoke evacuation by fan and evacuation of occupants from all exits at the basement of the building has the lowest FED value. On the other hand, depending on the fire source and smoke movement, sometimes occupants cannot use all exits. Therefore, evacuation simulation has been done separately from each exit and evaluated with all FDS results.

Staircase evacuation is the major means of fire evacuation for current high-rise residential buildings. However, its feasibility may be questioned as more and more senior citizens live there in the future. The weakness in physical strength and mobility impairment of elderly people may impede the successful implementation of staircase evacuation. It is therefore reasonable to consider using elevators for overall evacuation in high-rise residential buildings. However, ensuring the fire safety of elevators and efficiently controlling the elevator-aided evacuation are two major difficulties for applying elevators in building fire evacuation. Recently, the use of smart control for building facility management has become a hot issue in built environment studies. An enabling solution for smart elevator-aided building fire evacuation (SEABFE) is proposed in this article. The solution supports the SEABFE by determining the safer and more efficient elevator-aided evacuation strategy based on real-time fire ground information and evacuation progress on the scene. A simulated case study of fire evacuation in a typical high-rise residential building shows that the proposed SEABFE can be successfully performed. Apart from keeping the elevator evacuation safe, the planned elevator-aided evacuation strategy may save 38.0% of the time compared with the strategy using only staircases in the scene.

Crowd dynamics have constituted a hotspot of research in recent times, particularly in areas where developmental progress has taken place in crowd evacuation for ensuring human safety. In high-density crowd events which happen frequently, panic or an emergency can lead to an increase in congestion which may cause disastrous incidents. Crowd control planning via simulation of people's movement and behavior can promote safe departures from a space, despite threatening circumstances. Up until now, the evolution of distinctive types of crowd behavior towards cooperative flow remains unexplored. Hence, in this paper, we investigate the impact of potential crowd behavior, namely best-response, risk-seeking, risk-averse, and risk-neutral agents in achieving cooperation during evacuation and its connection with evacuation time using a game-theoretic evacuation simulation model. We analyze the crowd evacuation of a rectangular room with either a single-door or multiple exits in a continuous space. Simulation results show that mutual cooperation during evacuation can be realized when the agents' population is dominated by risk-averse agents. The results also demonstrate that the risk-seeking agents tend toward aggressiveness by opting for a defector strategy regardless of the local crowd densities, while other crowd behavior shows cooperation under high local crowd density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, more and more theaters with rotating mechanisms have been built and used, such as theaters with rotating auditoriums. The rotation mechanism in this type of building may lead to the uncertainty of evacuation distances and routes, which undoubtedly poses a higher challenge to performance-based fire protection design. Taking the revolving auditorium theater as an example, this paper proposes a systematic method to solve the problem of randomness in evacuation scenarios. The numerical simulations based on FDS and Pathfinder were carried out, and two improved evacuation strategies for theaters with rotating auditorium were proposed. The results show that the blockage of evacuation exits is an important factor affecting the success of evacuation and the evacuation time. In addition, the establishment of emergency evacuation stairs and rotating auditoriums can effectively reduce the evacuation time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, performance-based fire-protection design is used for the fire-safety design of public amenities with restrained personnel activities. In these places, tourists’ activities are constrained in a limited space such as cockpit moving along the track. Since it is another typical scenario of fire-protection problem that cannot fully comply with the current mandatory codes and regulations, simulation analysis is used in order to ensure that such fire scenario could achieve performance objectives as expected. Firstly, corresponding fire-protection performance objectives, strategies and simplified evaluation criteria are brought forward in this paper. Then, through simulating the smoke flow in the fire using the computational fluid dynamics software FDS, the effectiveness of the smoke control strategy is verified. Meanwhile, the escaping environments of these fire scenes are analyzed. Further, the personnel evacuation simulation software (Pathfinder) is resorted to simulate the personnel emergency evacuation. The efficiency and the total time that consumed are obtained. Finally, by analyzing the similarities and differences of evacuation under different fire scenes, the fire and smoke spread in the riding area can be effectively controlled, and a safe evacuation environment can be provided for the evacuation of tourists.

Over the past few years there has been a significant change in fire safety design and management. As the possibility of safe escape is the most crucial aspect of a building's fire safety features, the understanding of human behaviour under fire conditions is important for a successful evacuation. Previous research studies have developed models, prototypes, and serious games that help engineers/architects to design or firefighters to improve design so that the building facilitates a smooth evacuation process. Although these studies have looked into human behaviour, perceptions of important stakeholders (such as occupants, structural engineers, fire engineers, facility managers) are still not understood. These perceptions are important for the appropriate application of technology for evacuation. The broader research effort, of which this paper is part, stems from the premise that bespoke evacuation instructions can be sent directly to evacuees' smartphones. Information from a BIM model with the aid of sensors can be used to customise these evacuation instructions. The prospect of information being delivered to occupants during a fire emergency is still at its premature phase and more research is needed. Twenty-three interviews were conducted with occupants who currently live in high-rise residential buildings in Egypt and the United Kingdom to understand their views of using smartphones to assist during fire evacuations. The sampling strategy targeted occupants who currently live in high-rise residential buildings but have not necessarily experienced a fire evacuation. The research clearly shows the importance of smartphones during evacuation and the role they can play in assisting occupants to find the fastest and safest egress route. The interview findings will assist in future research to develop an evacuation framework system that could be implemented for high-rise residential buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study spread of smoke from a possible fire in a University building and the evacuation time of occupants were simulated. Fire dynamic simulations (FDS) have been done for natural and forced smoke evacuation with different scenarios; at the same time, evacuation simulations have also been done for various scenarios for different exits at the building. While occupants move through changing CO, CO2, and O2 concentrations, Fractional Effective Dose (FED) was gathered to obtain results from both simulations. FED results were evaluated for poisoning risk of occupants. According to comparative results, the combination of scenarios that forced smoke evacuation by fan and evacuation of occupants from all exits at the basement of the building has the lowest FED value. On the other hand, depending on the fire source and smoke movement, sometimes occupants cannot use all exits. Therefore, evacuation simulation has been done separately from each exit and evaluated with all FDS results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reasonable evacuation strategies are important in reducing casualties in the event of a fire. In this work, we conduct a simulation of a fire evacuation of a large public building based on the building information modeling technology to find the best evacuation strategy. We identify the tolerance limit of evacuees in case of a fire as the basis of the simulation using the fire dynamics simulator software. The following four evacuation strategies are proposed and simulated: stratified evacuation only by stairs, stratified evacuation mainly by stairs and supplemented by fire elevators, holistic evacuation only by stairs, and holistic evacuation mainly by stairs and supplemented by fire elevators. The case study of a college canteen shows that if 10% of evacuees (mainly elderly people who walk slowly and children who take up less space) are instructed to evacuate via fire elevators and the other 90% of evacuees (young men and women who move fast) use the stairs, the evacuation time can be reduced to a minimum. Some improvements in the design drawing result in the enhanced efficiency of the proposed strategy. The findings of this work are of great significance for the optimization of the structural design of large public buildings and provide some references for emergency evacuation.

• Use BIM to simulate building structure and layout of an underground commercial street. • Apply Pyrosim to simulate fire protection zones, worst-case sources and scenarios. • Apply Pathfinder to simulate evacuation behaviors, routes, congestion, and diversion. • Calculate evacuation times and propose more efficient evacuation plan and management. • Test stair types and propose improved designs to increase evacuation efficiency. High-density built-up areas in cities often enlist the underground realm to provide solution space for transport, shopping and other purposes. The special location, layout, and accessibility of underground structures often generate unique and acute safety-risk concerns. They are inadequately understood and managed and cannot be tackled appropriately by conventional risk assessment and abatement methods. This study focused on evacuating underground commercial streets (UCS) with a heavy concentration of people in Fuzhou city in China. Despite the widespread use of building information modeling (BIM) in construction, it has rarely been applied to studies of underground shopping streets. This study adopted BIM technology as the core method, in conjunction with PyroSim fire and Pathfinder evacuation simulation software. Different fire scenarios in four fire protection zones and the most unfavorable fire sources were set in the model. Based on a calculated number of persons at the start of a fire, different movement paths, stair configuration and exit width were simulated. The choice of escape routes, congestion locations, and slack time windows were identified by the graphical images of the simulation programs. Required safe egress time was compared with available safe egress time, and the number of successful evacuees was reckoned. The effects of three escape-stair forms on evacuee utilization and evacuation rates were evaluated. Their evacuation efficiency was ranked: crossed stair > straight stair > parallel-double stair. The simulation results can optimize building layout design and improve understanding of evacuation-efficiency factors. The findings can contribute to reducing casualties and property losses and improving UCS's fire safety management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving evacuation efficiency is a central concern in evacuation simulation research. Incorrect feedback information can affect the effectiveness of evacuation control in partially observable evacuation. In this paper, we introduce a framework for evacuation guidance control, emphasizing data prediction and correction to mitigate the impact of abnormal observed data. The framework is built upon force-driven Cellular Automaton (CA) models and employs a data correction module to rectify abnormal information. Guided by this framework, we implement the data correction module's functionality using Back Propagation (BP) neural networks. We utilize historical simulation data to train the BP network, obtaining a model for correcting abnormal data. Additionally, we integrate the data correction model with density control algorithms to facilitate pedestrian flow management in abnormal evacuation scenarios. Subsequently, we conduct two comparative simulation experiments to verify the algorithm's effectiveness. One experiment utilizes an abnormal data replacement method, while the other employs a data correction method. The results show that the method of abnormal data replacement is simple, but it cannot improve the control efficiency in abnormal evacuation scenarios. The data correction method proposed in this paper can effectively improve evacuation efficiency and alleviate the congestion at exits caused by abnormal data, which reduces evacuation efficiency. The results are expected to provide insights into improving evacuation systems' efficiency and personnel safety. • A framework for evacuation guidance control with data prediction and correction • Integration of force-driven CA models and BP neural networks to rectify abnormal observed data • Validation of the proposed algorithm through comparative simulation experiments [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Computerised tabletop exercises. • Preparedness, adaptation, and response to multi-hazard incidents. • Modelling and visualising large-scale evacuation procedures. • Enhancing risk assessment by quantifying hazard impact. • Quantifying evacuation times and impact of hazards on viable routes. To prepare for large-scale emergencies and crisis affecting communities, authorities, and emergency commanders use several types of training methods ranging from seminars to full-scale exercises. Within this continuum of exercise types, tabletop exercises (TTXs) are habitually used to familiarise participants with mitigation strategies, population management and evacuation procedures conducted as a response to natural or technological hazards. Commonly, TTXs are paper-based, and if computerised, use basic electronic maps, tend to be scripted and have a linear nature. Information flow is unidirectional as the script dictates how the exercise unfolds. These exercises have little capacity for producing qualitative or quantitative feedback related to the impact that the received scenario injects (i.e., incoming messages including scripted events and hazard locations), the authorities' decisions, and the impact of hazards have on the wellbeing of the community and the evacuation process. While informative during training, this type of feedback may prove vital in assessing the likely impact of real incident. In this work an evacuation simulation model is proposed to augment the TTX experience in real time, offering feedback and insights on the impact that such injects, decisions and hazards have on the simulated community. The proposed methodology is utilised in an actual TTX co-organised and executed by the Municipality of Rhodes, Greece, where the evacuation model is used to (a) develop the standard, non-incident specific evacuation procedures for the Medieval City of Rhodes (MCR), (b) to adapt these procedures based on the injects (generated on-site or telecommunicated, emulating receipt from the field), producing the TTX scenario and (c) to provide information on the impact that the TTX hazards have on the evacuation process. The integration of evacuation modelling into the TTX process demonstrated that it is possible to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities related to route choices in response to path closures, the assembly and evacuation performance, as well as the management of the simulated incident by analysing qualitative and quantitative simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Great East Japan Earthquake 2011, a massive tsunami that exceeded predictions caused extensive flooding damage over a widespread area. As a result, the managers of underground facilities in areas at risk of tsunami arrival prepare and publish evacuation safety plans detailing measures that will ensure smooth and rapid evacuations from their facilities in the event of a tsunami. However, when attempting to verify whether all affected persons can evacuate safely in the case of a major earthquake-related tsunami, it is necessary to consider various route obstacles that may result when the disaster first strikes. This study quantitatively evaluates the safety of an evacuation guidance plan created for a large underground facility in preparation for the flooding that would result from earthquake-related tsunamis and examines the effects of evacuation route obstacles via simulations. The main findings are as follows: By comparing the results with the evacuation safety plan prepared by the facility management company and the results of simulation of each scenario including accidents, we could evaluate safety impacts quantitatively. In some scenarios, the evacuation completion time was delayed by more than 1.5 times compared to the scenario by the management company due to the high concentration of evacuees on the stairs caused by obstacles in the evacuation route. The scenarios in this study showed that evacuation time impacts were more severe in cases involving blocked corridors than in cases involving blocked stairways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]