Follow the evacuation signs or surrounding people during building evacuation, an experimental study

Yu Zhu, Tao Chen, Ning Ding, Mohcine Chraibi and Wei-Cheng Fan

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2020, vol. 560, issue C

Abstract: Evacuation signage plays a vital role in building evacuation. In order to test the efficiency of evacuation signage, the traditional methods are video analysis and after-drill questionnaires and the human factors are rarely considered. This paper investigates the impact of surrounding pedestrians on the sign guidance efficiency during building emergency evacuation, replacing the traditional ways with eye tracking device method. More than 500 participants were involved in the series of experiments to test the influence of surrounding people on detecting and following signages. It is found that (a) the subjective ignorance and objective ignorance of signs exist obviously and are affected by surrounding people number; (b) strangers and acquaintances have similar effect on the sign detection probability and direction choosing probability in the safe and quick evacuation experiments, contrary to general belief; (c) One surrounding person has an important influence on the sign guidance effect, especially on the following probability, while three surrounding people not. Based on the results of the experiments, a new logic of wayfinding within rooms was put forward and simulated to compared with the original logic. It is shown that the average right direction choosing percentage decreases by 30% after considering the effect of surrounding pedestrians, proving that the impact of surrounding pedestrians must be considered in evacuation modeling and evacuation route design.

Keywords: Pedestrian evacuation; Wayfinding; Evacuation signage; Surrounding pedestrians; Eye tracking device (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:560:y:2020:i:c:s037843712030604x

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2020.125156

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