Elementary modelling and behavioural analysis for emergency evacuations using social media

Social media usage in evacuations and emergency management represents a rapidly expanding field of study. Our paper thus provides quantitative insight into a serious practical problem. Within this context a behavioural approach is key. We discuss when facilitators should consider model-based interventions amid further implications for disaster communication and emergency management. We model the behaviour of individual people by deriving optimal contrarian strategies. We formulate a Bayesian algorithm which enables the optimal evacuation to be conducted sequentially under worsening conditions. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).