An extension of the exit choice model: Considering the variance in the perspectives of evacuees when interacting with the spread of fire

Abstract

Understanding evacuees’ responses to dynamic environmental changes, during an emergency evacuation, is of great importance in determining which aspects are ideal and which aspects should be eliminated or corrected. Evacuees differ in their ability to continually plan escape routes and adapt the routes chosen when they become unsafe owing to moving sources of threat. This is because they have different views and perspectives. The perspectives of evacuees are stochastic and are characterized by a high degree of uncertainty and complexity. To reduce the complexity and control of uncertainty, a model is proposed that can test for variant stochastic representations of evacuees’ perspectives. Two extremely realistic perspectives—the most ideal and the least ideal—are proposed to reasonably limit the range of variance. The success of achieving optimal evacuation is tested when different tendencies towards extreme perspectives are adopted. It is concluded that data toward the most ideal perspectives are capable of demonstrating safer evacuation by reducing the number of simulated burnt agents. This study enables crowd managers and fire safety researchers to test guidance systems as well as configuration of buildings using different perspectives of evacuees.