Crowd response considering herd effect and exit familiarity under emergent occasions: A case study of an evacuation drill experiment

Anying Chen, Jingtao He, Manchun Liang and Guofeng Su

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2020, vol. 556, issue C

Abstract: In order to look into people’s behavior in crowds during emergencies, we conducted an evacuation drill experiment in an office building of a university without early notification when the experiment subjects were working as usual. The statistical features of their evacuation decision-making and exit choices related behaviors were analyzed. Two interesting responses were found in this experiment: 1. People showed herding tendency when deciding to evacuate. 2. People would like to choose the exit that they frequently used to escape because of their daily habits, which is not mentioned in or inconsistent with the most previous research findings. Based on the above findings, an extended cost potential field model considering herd effect and exit familiarity was put forward. The corresponding simulation results showed that the modified model could better describe people’s behavior during emergencies.

Keywords: Crowd response; Emergency; Evacuation experiment; Herd behavior; Exit familiarity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:556:y:2020:i:c:s0378437120303137

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2020.124654

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