An extended model for describing pedestrian evacuation under the threat of artificial attack

Changkun Chen, Yunhe Tong, Congling Shi, Wenlong Qin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

An extended floor field model was proposed to investigate evacuation behaviors of pedestrians under the threat of artificial attack. In this model, pedestrian movement governed by the static and dynamic floor field, and the motion and assault of artificial attacker were involved simultaneously. Further, injuries with lower velocity and deaths of pedestrians caused by the attacker during evacuation were considered. And a new parameter kt was introduced. It is the sensitivity coefficient of attack threat floor field and could reflect quantitatively the extent of effect of attack threat on the decision-making of the individual. Moreover, effects of several key parameters such as the sensitivity coefficient, assault intensity and pedestrian density on evacuation dynamics were studied. Results show that pedestrian evacuation would display interesting phenomena transiting from rolling behavior to along-the-wall motion with aggravating extent of the impact of attackers on pedestrians, which refers kt in the model varying from 0.5 to 0.8. As assault intensity increases, more casualties would be caused and the available evacuation time would decrease, which means people have to flee the room in a shorter time period for survival. When the pedestrian density increases, more clogging at the exit would be generated and pedestrians would be more difficult to evacuate due to the limited capacity of egress and the reduction in the average speed of pedestrian flow caused by the injured. And the injured with limited motion capacity could hardly complete the evacuation owing to that they need more evacuation time and would retard the speed of the pedestrian flow.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2445-2454
Number of pages10
JournalPhysics letters a
Volume382
Issue number35
Early online date18 Jun 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2018

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • evacuation behavior
  • artificial attack
  • floor field model
  • pedestrian density

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'An extended model for describing pedestrian evacuation under the threat of artificial attack'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this