Pedestrian evacuations with imitation of cooperative behavior

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to show that introducing a small number of cooperative individuals in a crowd can significantly improve evacuation speed and safety, especially in long spaces, by reducing congestion and evacuation time.

Contribution

It demonstrates that imitation of cooperative behavior among individuals can enhance evacuation efficiency and safety, highlighting the importance of training for high-density crowd management.

Findings

Adding cooperative agents reduces evacuation time.

Cooperative behavior decreases crowd density near exits.

Small numbers of cooperators significantly improve evacuation in long corridors.

Abstract

We analyze the dynamics of room evacuation for mixed populations that include both competitive and cooperative individuals through numerical simulations using the social force model. Cooperative agents represent well-trained individuals who know how to behave in order to reduce risks within high-density crowds. We consider that competitive agents can imitate cooperative behavior when they are in close proximity to cooperators. We study the effects of the imitation of cooperative behavior on the duration and safety of evacuations, analyzing evacuation time and other quantities of interest for varying parameters such as the proportions of mixing, the aspect ratio of the room, and the parameters characterizing individual behaviors. Our main findings reveal that the addition of a relatively small number of cooperative agents into a crowd can reduce evacuation time and the density near the exit door, making the evacuation faster and safer despite an increase in the total number of agents. In particular, for long spaces such as corridors, a small number of added cooperative agents can significantly facilitate the evacuation process. We compare our results with those of systems without imitation and also study the general role of cooperation, providing further analysis for homogeneous populations. Our main conclusions emphasize the potential relevance of training people how to behave in high-density crowds