An optimization method for evacuation guidance under limited visual field.

In the emergency under smoke or gas, the visual field of pedestrians is limited, unreasonable evacuation guidance methods will affect the efficiency of evacuation, and even cause evacuation failure in serious cases. Therefore, the optimized evacuation guidance strategy is investigated in this study. First, a distance factor is introduced to modify the follow-up behavior of pedestrians, which solves the problem of leaders being blocked by pedestrians. Then, a reward grid-based leader initial position optimization method is proposed to ensure the safe guidance of pedestrians. By considering the density and distance factors comprehensively, the leader's position is theoretically available by calculation. Finally, a leader exit selection strategy based on evacuation urgency degree is proposed. The leaders select exits in order of evacuation urgency degree, thus ensuring a more balanced exit utilization. The simulation results show that the proposed model can improve the safety of evacuation, and reduce the evacuation time. • The follow-up behavior of pedestrians is modified by introducing a distance factor. • A reward grid-based leader location-allocation method is proposed to optimize the initial location of leaders. • An exit selection strategy for leaders based on evacuation urgency degree is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]