Wide-area Evacuation Difficulty in Densely-built Wooden Residential Areas

In aiming to decrease the number of casualties and people with difficulty in wide-area evacuations due to a large earthquake, it is highly important to visualize and quantify the potential danger in residential areas. In this paper, we construct a multi-agent simulation model, which describes property damage (such as building-collapse, the spread of fire and blocking of streets) and people’s evacuation behavior after an earthquake occurring. Using this simulation model, we quantify the wide-area evacuation difficulty in densely-built wooden residential areas, and evaluate the past project to improve buildings and streets based on this indicator. Furthermore, we demonstrate the effects of adding new evacuation routes between two intersections of streets with narrow width and long distance. Through these case studies, the effectiveness of our simulation model on urban disaster mitigation planning is shown.