Evacuation Modeling Trends

138 Pages·2016·3.395 MB·English

by  Arturo Cuesta, Orlando Abreu, Daniel Alvear (eds.)

Arturo Cuesta · Orlando Abreu
Daniel Alvear Editors
Evacuation
Modeling
Trends
Evacuation Modeling Trends

Arturo Cuesta • Orlando Abreu • Daniel Alvear
Editors
Evacuation Modeling Trends
Editors
Arturo Cuesta Orlando Abreu
GIDAI Group GIDAI Group
University of Cantabria University of Cantabria
Santander , Cantabria , Spain Santander , Cantabria , Spain
Daniel Alvear
GIDAI Group
University of Cantabria
Santander , Cantabria , Spain
ISBN 978-3-319-20707-0 ISBN 978-3-319-20708-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-20708-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015951779
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
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Pref ace
Nobody doubts how important the evacuation process for life safety can be.
Evacuation modelling essentially aims to understand this complex phenomenon.
This requires identifying and selecting the relevant aspects of this process in the real
world and then using a model (that usually include a set of conceptual, mathemati-
cal and, frequently, computational models) to represent them. Despite being a sim-
plifi ed refl ection of reality, evacuation modelling is very useful because it helps us
to simulate, visualize, manipulate and gain additional information about the process
being represented and, therefore, improve life safety. Evacuation modelling allows
the main features of this process to be quantifi ed and thus contributes to their
optimization. This book, Evacuation Modeling Trends , is intended for those
involved in safety, from emergency and intervention personnel to students, engi-
neers and researchers. The chapter authors are international experts in their own
fi elds. The book covers basic concepts and defi nitions, theory on human behavior
and human performance data, available tools and simulation approaches, model
development, application and validation methods and suggests some challenges for
the future in the subject.
Chapter 1 presents basic concepts and defi nitions of evacuation modelling,
describes the different solutions to represent the evacuees and the geometry and
discusses the current evacuation modelling methods.
Chapter 2 discusses the nature and importance of the different parameters
involved in ASET and RSET and the interactions between them. Consideration is
given to the data and research efforts needed to develop and incorporate functions
for the different parameters into comprehensive escape and evacuation simulations,
with a number of examples illustrating different aspects and approaches.
Chapter 3 addresses the information available regarding how people typically
behave during an evacuation, the tools used to represent this performance and how
these tools might be properly implemented. The focus is on individual evacuee per-
formance—what we know about it and how it might be represented.
Chapter 4 discusses the verifi cation and validation (V&V) methods of evacuation
modelling, revises current literature on V&V approaches and presents a set of rec-
ommended verifi cation tests and examples of validation tests.
v
vi Preface
Chapter 5 discusses some of the future challenges in evacuation modelling: new
scenarios and factors for future model developments, addresses the problem of
using deterministic and/or stochastic approaches in evacuation modelling and pro-
poses and discusses the use of evacuation models for supporting timely decisions in
real time.
Santander, Spain Arturo Cuesta
Orlando Abreu
Daniel Alvear
Contents
1 Basic Concepts and Modelling Methods .............................................. 1
Enrico Ronchi and Daniel Nilsson
2 Developments in Tenability and Escape Time Assessment
for Evacuation Modelling Simulations ................................................. 25
David A. Purser
3 Representation of Human Behaviour in Fire ...................................... 55
Steven M. V. Gwynne and Erica D. Kuligowski
4 Verification and Validation Methods .................................................... 81
Weiguo Song and Libi Fu
5 Future Challenges in Evacuation Modelling ....................................... 103
Arturo Cuesta , Orlando Abreu , and Daniel Alvear
Glossary .......................................................................................................... 131
vii
Chapter 1
Basic Concepts and Modelling Methods
Enrico Ronchi and Daniel Nilsson
1.1 Introduction
Try to imagine a fire emergency evacuation. What is the first image that you have in
your mind? Here there are some guesses. Probably a parent running inside a house
trying to rescue her children, but not managing since she is too scared? An old man
stuck crying in a corner of a room with flames and smoke all around him? Or a
group of people crushing aggressively against each other in order to get out of a
building through a very small exit door? Almost surely you have thought about
people shouting and screaming for help, without doing any constructive actions.
Well, these scenarios represent a significant minority of what a fire evacuation gen-
erally is. When we think about a fire emergency, we often think about people losing
their rationality, rushing irrationally in search of an exit or searching desperately
for help. Nevertheless, researchers generally do not agree with this interpretation.
This misconception comes from the public opinion, in which a fire emergency is
often linked to the word “panic”. Human behaviour in fire emergencies used in
media accounts and survivors’ statement is generally associated with panic behav-
iour. In contrast with this stereotype, the concept that a fire might cause panic has
been abandoned by the scientific community [1]. The definition of panic itself has
been largely questioned in several research studies [2, 3]. Feelings such as anxiety
and stress may occur during a fire emergency, but they do not generally lead to irra-
tional or anti-social behaviours [1]. Evacuees generally tend to behave rationally,
with non-rational and anti-social behaviours occurring in very rare occasions,
mostly in very extreme scenarios in which the probability of surviving perceived is
extremely low [2]. In fact, most people do not develop shock reactions, and tend to
E. Ronchi (*) • D. Nilsson
Department of Fire Safety Engineering, Lund University,
118, Lund 22100, Sweden
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1
A. Cuesta et al. (eds.), Evacuation Modeling Trends,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-20708-7_1
2 E. Ronchi and D. Nilsson
act in accordance to what they think is in their best interest, given the limited
understanding they have of the situation.
The de-mystification of the misconception about panic is needed in order to talk
about evacuation modelling. The reason is very simple: in order to discuss models of
evacuation behaviour, the starting point is that evacuation can be considered as a ratio-
nal process. This idea permits the study of evacuation with theoretical frameworks.
Another common myth is that the “human factor” as such introduces variables
that are almost impossible to predict with any degree of certainty. But is this com-
pletely true? The statement that we will never be able to predict what we would do
during a fire emergency is both true and false. In fact, it is true that it is today almost
impossible to exactly predict what a single individual would do in a fire emergency
in his/her house or office. Nevertheless, people tend to show certain trends in their
behaviours in relation to their internal characteristics (psychological factors, previ-
ous experience, etc.) and external factors (environmental conditions, etc.) [3, 4]. For
this reason, from a scientific perspective, it is incorrect to assume that human behav-
iour is not completely predictable; it is simply a matter of assessing the level of
uncertainty associated with the predictions that we can make, given the current
theoretical knowledge on human behaviour in fire.
Evacuation modelling is therefore a tool to simulate human behaviour which
starts from two assumptions, namely:
1) human behaviour during evacuation is rational
2) human behaviour during evacuation can be predicted
1.1.1 Basic Concepts and Definitions
The present section has the objective to help the reader understand the basic con-
cepts associated with evacuation modelling in fire emergencies. It includes a brief
description of the context in which evacuation modelling has been developed and
discusses the evolution of the methods adopted for modelling human behaviour in
fire. Fire evacuation modelling is a field of science which relates to the simulation
of human behaviour during fire emergencies. The need for evacuation modelling
tools derives from a paradigm shift in the fire safety design of buildings, i.e., the
introduction of performance-based design. The performance-based design approach
is based on the concept that any fire safety design can be used in a building as long
as an adequate level of safety is provided. This is in contrast with the prescriptive-
based design, in which fire safety designers need to follow a detailed set of rules and
regulations. Using a metaphor, the two approaches can be compared to two alterna-
tive ways a chef can prepare a meal. Using a prescriptive-based approach, the chef
uses a cookbook in which the exact ingredients, procedures, and tools to be used are
described in detail in order to prepare a tasty meal. The chef who uses a perfor-
mance-based approach can instead use any ingredient or procedure as long as the
final result is a tasty dish.