Optimal layout design of obstacles for panic evacuation using differential evolution

Zhao, Yongxiang; Li, Meifang; Lu, Xin; Lan, Tian; Yu, Zhiyong; Huang, Kuo-Chung; Wang, Yana; Li, Ting

doi:10.1016/j.physa.2016.08.021

Cited by 120 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…fire accidents, terrorist attacks). In the crowd dynamics literature, the term "panic" has been frequently used to refer emergency situations [2][3][4][5]. Hence, a clarification on the use of the word "panic" is required.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining effect of architectural adjustment on pedestrian crowd flow at bottleneck

Shi

Shiwakoti

et al. 2019

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

111

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Recent advances in bottleneck studies have highlighted that different architectural adjustments at the exit may reduce the probability of clogging at the exit thereby enhancing the outflow of the individuals. However, those studies are mostly limited to the controlled experiments with non-human organisms or predictions from simulation models. Complementary data with human subjects to test the model's prediction is limited in literature. This study aims to examine the effect of different geometrical layouts at the exit towards the pedestrian flow via controlled laboratory experiments with human participants. The experimental setups involve pedestrian flow through 14 different geometrical configurations that include different exit locations and obstacles near exit under normal and slow running conditions. It was found that corner exit performed better than middle exit under same obstacle condition. Further, it was observed that the effectiveness of obstacle is sensitive to its size and distance from the exit. Thus, with careful architectural adjustment within a standard escape area, a substantial increase in outflow under normal and slow running conditions could be achieved. However, it was also observed that placing the obstacle too close to the exit can reduce outflow under both normal and slow running conditions. Moreover, we could not observe "faster-is-slower" effect under slow running condition and instead noticed "faster-is-faster" effect. In addition, the power law fitted headway distribution demonstrated that any architectural configurations that enhanced the outflow have higher exponent value compared to the other configuration that negates the outflow. The findings from this paper demonstrate that there is a scope to adjust the architectural elements to optimize the maximum outflow at the egress point. Further, the output from the experiments can be used to develop and verify mathematical models intended to simulate crowd evacuation.From the data in Table 3, we could conclude that for normal walking situation, comparing with standard design ( s J  =2.67 Ped/s/m, S.D =  0.55 Ped/s/m), the most efficient setup is #11 (Corner exit,  =60 cm, D =100 cm) with 19.4% R. E. ( s J  =3.18 Ped/s/m, S.D =  0.34 Ped/s/m), and the least efficient geometry is #2 (Middle exit,  =60 cm, D =60 cm) with -10.6% R. E. ( s J  =2.38 Ped/s/m, S.D =  0.12 Ped/s/m). For slow running condition that is more representative of emergency evacuation condition, comparing with standard design ( s J  =3.37 Ped/s/m, S.D =  0.22 Ped/s/m), the most efficient setup was also #11 with 32.7% R. E. ( s J  =4.47 Ped/s/m, S.D =  0.19 Ped/s/m), and the least one turned into #5 (Middle exit,  =100 cm, D =60 cm) with -5.6% R. E. ( s J  =3.18 Ped/s/m, S.D =  0.08 Ped/s/m).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining effect of architectural adjustment on pedestrian crowd flow at bottleneck

Shi

Shiwakoti

et al. 2019

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

111

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“…Several papers investigate the effectiveness of the Braess's paradox in silico, reporting the effect of additional obstacles placed in the walking area. A manual placing is performed, e.g., in [9,10,11,12,13,14], while an optimization algorithm is used, e.g., in [15,16,17,18,19,20]. Such a bottom-down crowd control strategy pursued by the smart deployment of obstacles can be very effective in the case of very large crowds or emergency situations, and, more in general, whenever communications from supervisors to the crowd are difficult.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robust design optimization for egressing pedestrians in unknown environments

Cristiani

Peri

2019

Applied Mathematical Modelling

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In this paper, we deal with a size-variable group of pedestrians moving in a unknown confined environment and searching for an exit. Pedestrian dynamics are simulated by means of a recently introduced microscopic (agent-based) model, characterized by an exploration phase and an egress phase. First, we study the model to reveal the role of its main parameters and its qualitative properties. Second, we tackle a robust optimization problem by means of the Particle Swarm Optimization method, aiming at reducing the time-to-target by adding in the walking area multiple obstacles optimally placed and shaped. Robustness is sought against the number of people in the group, which is an uncertain quantity described by a random variable with given probability density distribution.

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“…Simulation based on microscopic behavior of pedestrians is capable of reproducing macroscopic crowd phenomena, thus becoming a main approach to explore the macroscopic features of pedestrian flows under different walking scenarios. The most widely applicable microscopic simulation models include the cellular automata (CA) model, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] the social force model (SFM), [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] the centrifugal force model, 30 and compositional models 31 in the state-of-the-art research. The study objects generally include passing flows in passageways, 13,17,18,22,25 evacuation flows from an empty room, 12,15,16,23,32 and pedestrian flows in visual-affected, 1,2 multi-exit, 3,6 and spatial obstructed situations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The study objects generally include passing flows in passageways, 13,17,18,22,25 evacuation flows from an empty room, 12,15,16,23,32 and pedestrian flows in visual-affected, 1,2 multi-exit, 3,6 and spatial obstructed situations. [7][8][9][10][11]23,24,27,28,33 The CA model has been widely applied for its high speed in computer simulation and the capacity to reproduce certain macroscopic phenomenon, such as arching, selforganization, and stampede-crush. The CA model divides the space into discrete grids and sets certain update rules to motivate pedestrians.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The SFM assumed that pedestrians were motivated by the self-driven force, repulsion force, and friction force, and successfully reproduced macroscopic behavior like ''arching'' and the ''faster-isslower effect''. 9,10 The SFM was further improved from the perspectives of self-driven force modification, 15,16,22 repulsion force modification, 17,18,24 and parameter calibration 11,[17][18][19]23 . Yang et al 15 used navigational force to model the effect of guides, and added parameters considering the effect of the vision field, excitement or nervousness, and the surrounding environment into the calculation of desired velocity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simulation of pedestrian flow with evading and surpassing behavior in a walking passageway

et al. 2017

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The pedestrian flow with evading and surpassing behavior in a walking passageway is simulated based on a modified social force model in order to explore the influence of this behavior on evacuation efficiency, bottleneck passing capacity, and the macroscopic phenomenon. A pair of conjugated self-driven forces is introduced to enable a pedestrian to avoid a direct collision and keep a normal velocity magnitude while confronting an obstacle. The pedestrian avoiding time is used to define the triggering conditions of evading and surpassing behavior, and has been estimated through practical experiments. Simulation results show that in a passageway without spatial obstacles, the evading and surpassing behavior will increase the evacuation time under the condition that the pedestrian number is larger than a critical value. Moreover, when a spatial obstacle exists, both the rise of pedestrian numbers and the decline of bottleneck width would increase the evacuation time. Meanwhile, it is observed that compared with a bar-shaped obstacle, a circle-shaped obstacle corresponds to a larger bottleneck passing capacity and less evacuation time when the size of the spatial obstacle is above a critical value. In addition, a phenomenon of a triangle ''evading region'' caused by the evading and surpassing behavior also can be observed before the spatial obstacle through simulation and experiments. Furthermore, it can be concluded that a circle-shaped obstacle corresponds to a stronger guiding function and a larger area of ''evading region'' compared with a bar-shaped one, and induces a relatively higher bottleneck passing capacity in a walking passageway.

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Optimal layout design of obstacles for panic evacuation using differential evolution

Cited by 120 publications

References 35 publications

Examining effect of architectural adjustment on pedestrian crowd flow at bottleneck

Examining effect of architectural adjustment on pedestrian crowd flow at bottleneck

Robust design optimization for egressing pedestrians in unknown environments

Simulation of pedestrian flow with evading and surpassing behavior in a walking passageway

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