Evacuation simulation

Evacuation simulation is a method to determine evacuation times for areas, buildings, or vessels. It is based on the simulation of crowd dynamics and pedestrian motion. The number of evacuation software have been increased dramatically in the last 25 years. A similar trend has been observed in term of the number of scientific papers published on this subject. One of the latest survey indicate the existence of over 70 pedestrian evacuation models. There are two conferences dedicated to this subject: Pedestrian Evacuation Dynamics and Human Behavior in Fire.

The distinction between buildings, ships, and vessels on the one hand and settlements and areas on the other hand is important for the simulation of evacuation processes. In the case of the evacuation of a whole district, the transport phase (see emergency evacuation) is usually covered by queueing models (see below).

Pedestrian evacuation simulation are popular in the fire safety design of building when a performance based approach is used. Simulations are not primarily methods for optimization. To optimize the geometry of a building or the procedure with respect to evacuation time, a target function has to be specified and minimized. Accordingly, one or several variables must be identified which are subject to variation.