Evacuation assistants: An extended model for determining effective locations and optimal numbers

The present research presents an extended evacuation field model for simulating crowd emergency evacuation processes under the control of evacuation assistants. Furthermore, a communication field for describing the escape information transmission process and its effect on evacuees is introduced. The effective locations and optimal numbers of evacuation assistants as generated through the model are proposed in an effort to verify as well as enhance existing models. Results show the following. (1) Locating evacuation assistants near exits reduces the time delay for pre-evacuation. (2) There is an optimal number of evacuation assistants for achieving evacuation efficiency; having excessive numbers of evacuation assistants does not improve the evacuation efficiency, and they may result in evacuation time delay and hinder the evacuation efficiency. (3) As the number of evacuees increases, the number of evacuation assistants needed decreases.