Modeling the Dynamic Route Choice of Pedestrians to Assess the Criticality of Building Evacuation

This paper presents an event-driven way finding algorithm for pedestrians in an evacuation scenario, which operates on a graph-based structure. The motivation of each pedestrian is to leave the facility. The events used to redirect pedestrians include the identification of a jam situation and/or identification of a better route than the current. This study considers two types of pedestrians: familiar and unfamiliar with the facility. Four strategies are modelled to cover those groups. The modelled strategies are the shortest path (local and global); They are combined with a quickest path approach, which is based on an observation principle. In the quickest path approach, pedestrians take their decisions based on the observed environment and are routed dynamically in the network using an appropriate cost benefit analysis function. The dynamic modelling of route choice with different strategies and types of pedestrians considers the manifold of influences which appears in the real system and raises questions about the criticality of an evacuation process. To address this question criteria are elaborated. The criteria we focus on in this contribution are the evacuation time, the individual times spent in jam, the jam size evolution and the overall jam size itself. The influences of the different strategies on those evaluation criteria are investigated. The sensibility of the system to disturbances (e.g. broken escape route) is also analysed.