Swarm Interaction-Based Simulation of Occupant Evacuation

The understanding of occupant responses during an evacuation is crucial for improving the design of effective escape routes. We propose a swarm interaction-based approach for the simulation of occupants evacuating from an enclosed environment. This method contributes to the research in evacuation processes that adopts the family of cellular automata models. It is shown that the trajectories followed by occupants in evacuation could be mimicked by the social interactions among them and their self-experiences of the individuals. Simulation results of the evacuation from a single exit enclosure are included to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed approach in representing evacuation phenomena such as jamming and clogging.