Study on pedestrian flow evacuation with individual-guidance mechanism

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide the possible and better selection for pedestrian flow evacuation. Design/methodology/approach – Simulation. Findings – First, according to the model with self-decision agents, the paper figures out that the effect of evacuation guided by the random-walk mechanism exceeds that guided by the inertial mechanism, and specifically, the effect of evacuation could significantly improve if random-walk agents restraint the probability of random walk under 0.4. Besides, on neighborhood reference mechanism, individuals who take neighbors’ average direction as reference tend to achieve better effect of evacuation than that of following majority rule. Furthermore, this paper proposes that an optimal ratio of the proportion of clever individuals and system density exists for evacuation effect improvement. Finally, the evacuating effect with barrier locating in different space is also studied in our research. Originality/value – The effect of evacuation could significantly improve if random-walk agents restraint the probability of random walk under 0.4. On neighborhood reference mechanism, individuals who take neighbors’ average direction as reference tend to achieve better effect of evacuation than that of following majority rule.