Survival Psychology

A review on travel behaviour modelling in dynamic traffic simulation models for evacuations

“…Wills (1998) argues that in these situations people rely more on instincts and experience, thereby avoiding the time needed for making rationally thought-over decisions. Leach and Campling (1982) and Schmidt and Warner (2002) found evidence for this by showing that people typically tend to remain calm, and only once they perceive inescapability do they express behaviour which can be seen as irrational and habitual (note that to express habitual behaviour under disaster conditions, for instance, for the case of exit choice, can be seen as irrational or illogical). Leach and Campling (1982) further argue that during the impact phase there is evidence of a clear distinction between the psycho-behavioural responses of three types of individuals.…”

“…Leach and Campling (1982) and Schmidt and Warner (2002) found evidence for this by showing that people typically tend to remain calm, and only once they perceive inescapability do they express behaviour which can be seen as irrational and habitual (note that to express habitual behaviour under disaster conditions, for instance, for the case of exit choice, can be seen as irrational or illogical). Leach and Campling (1982) further argue that during the impact phase there is evidence of a clear distinction between the psycho-behavioural responses of three types of individuals. Once people undertake action in the impact phase, people may remain calm and rational, may be stunned by the situation and react in a semi automatic manner, or may mentally breakdown and react uncontrolled and inappropriately.…”

“…A large number of real life emergency situations collected and discussed by Quarantelli (1957) and Leach and Campling (1982) indicate that the behavioural response of people is remarkably consistent across different types of disastrous conditions. This structural pattern is divided into a number of temporal phases showing how behavioural responses change over time as the emergency conditions develop, summarized in Fig.…”

“…For example, when people perceive themselves as safe yet receive information on a possible threat, then the logical inconsistency in these beliefs is (initially) resolved by rejecting or ignoring this warning information. A large number of real life examples are discussed by Leach and Campling (1982) where people in danger choose to ignore the possibility of the disaster despite the warnings prior to the disaster. In all cases, the conflicting information is discarded as being not relevant or untrustworthy.…”

“…2. These phases range from pre-impact when an emergency is becoming probable to post-impact Leach and Campling 1982) when the emergency has passed. Equivalent models have been proposed by, for example, Glass (1959) and Tyhurst (1951).…”