An experimental study on the critical state of herd behavior in decision-making of the crowd evacuation

Yixue Liu and Zhanli Mao

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2022, vol. 595, issue C

Abstract: The research of crowd evacuation plays the predominant role of guaranteeing the controllability of the stampede disaster and decreasing accidents casualties. Herd behavior is one of the characteristic crowd evacuation behaviors, which has the definite influence on evacuees’ decision-making and evacuation efficiency. In this paper, the crowd evacuation observation experiments were conducted to investigate herd behavior by considered 16 working conditions, including change the number of participants, alter urgency levels and set barrier. The participant allotment and crowd movement time on different sides and exits are obtained. The judgment area and crowd density are proposed to understand the herd behavior and choices of decision maker. The critical states of herd behavior in direction and exit choices are confirmed according to the video observation and data analysis. The results indicate that herd behavior moderately leads to the different distribution and movement time of the experimental crowd. Decision maker does not present herd behavior when crowd density is relatively high or low. When crowd density in direction choice judgment area is within the range of [1/12, 1/6] (person/m2), and the crowd density in exit choice judgment area is within the range of [1/27, 2/27] (person/m2), decision maker basically triggers herd behavior. This study provides insight into the critical state of herd behavior which deepens the understanding of crowd evacuation and contributes to the reference of the crowd accident management.

Keywords: Crowd evacuation; Herd behavior; Critical state; Experiment; Direction choice; Exit choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437122001297
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:595:y:2022:i:c:s0378437122001297

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2022.127087

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().