An evacuation guidance model for heterogeneous populations in large-scale pedestrian facilities with multiple exits

This study proposes an evacuation guidance model for heterogeneous populations to investigate the effects of guidance strategies on the evacuation process in large-scale pedestrian facilities with multiple exits. The guidance model integrates an exit choice model and a microscopic pedestrian simulation model with discrete space representation. The exit choice model, considering the travel distance to each exit, the level of congestion and the movement speed of pedestrians, generates the allocation of exits to pedestrians. The microscopic simulation model depicts the pedestrian movements during the evacuation under guidance. Numerical simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of the guidance strategy. Simulation results indicate that by balancing the time interval for sending evacuation instruction and the frequency of the target exit changes, better evacuation performance can be achieved. Comparison between two cases with and without instruction reveals that the performance of the guidance strategy is closely related to the pedestrian density level and the heterogeneous speeds of pedestrians. The evacuation performance is also affected by the compliance behavior and non-compliance behavior of pedestrians. The findings can provide theoretical suggestions for the effective management of crowd movement at large events.