Towards real-time human participation in virtual evacuation through a validated simulation tool

Gabriele Montecchiari, Gabriele Bulian and Paolo Gallina

Journal of Risk and Reliability, 2018, vol. 232, issue 5, 476-490

Abstract: The analysis of the ship layout from the point of view of safe and orderly evacuation represents an important step in ship design, which can be carried out through agent-based evacuation simulation tools, typically run in batch mode. Introducing the possibility for humans to interactively participate in a simulated evacuation process together with computer-controlled agents can open a series of interesting possibilities for design, research and development. To this aim, this article presents the development of a validated agent-based evacuation simulation tool which allows real-time human participation through immersive virtual reality. The main characteristics of the underlying social-force-based modelling technique are described. The tool is verified and validated by making reference to International Maritime Organization test cases, experimental data and FDS + Evac simulations. The first approach for supporting real-time human participation is then presented. An initial experiment embedding immersive virtual reality human participation is described, together with outcomes regarding comparisons between human-controlled avatars and computer-controlled agents. Results from this initial testing are encouraging in pursuing the use of virtual reality as a tool to obtain information on human behaviour during evacuation.

Keywords: Agent-based simulation; evacuation; FDS + Evac; fundamental diagram; human participation; International Maritime Organization test cases; ship safety; Unity3D; verification and validation; virtual reality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:risrel:v:232:y:2018:i:5:p:476-490

DOI: 10.1177/1748006X17705046

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