Cellular automaton model with turning behavior in crowd evacuation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a cellular automaton model for crowd evacuation that incorporates turning behavior and shoulder width, demonstrating that turning can optimize evacuation times.

Contribution

The study develops a novel cellular automaton model with rectangular evacuees allowing for sideways movement and turning, improving evacuation simulation accuracy.

Findings

Turning behavior reduces evacuation time.

An optimal turning rate exists for best evacuation efficiency.

Rectangular representation better models real evacuee behavior.

Abstract

Effective evacuation policies in emergency situations are important to save lives. To develop such policies, simulation models based on cellular automata have been used for crowd evacuation dynamics. In most previous studies of crowd evacuations, an evacuee is represented by a $1 \times 1$ square. However, a rectangle ($1 \times 2$) representation is more suitable for such models than the square representation because of evacuees' shoulder width. The rectangle representation gives two new features to evacuees' behaviors: moving sideways and turning. We study the effects of these behaviors on crowd evacuation dynamics. Hence, we constructed a cellular automaton model where evacuees whose shoulder widths are $1 \times 2$ try to escape from a room in an emergency situation. The simulation results showed that turning behavior can make the evacuation time shorter and there is an optimal turning rate for the crowd evacuation. Our findings contribute to the effective control of evacuees in emergency situations.