Preprint submitted to Advances in Complex Systems We present a model for evacuees ’ exit selection in emergency evacuations. The model is based on the game theoretic concept of best response dynamics, where each player updates his strategy periodically by reacting optimally to other players ’ strategies. A fixed point of the system of all players ’ best response functions defines a Nash equilibrium (NE) of the game. In the model the players are the evacuees and the strategies are the possible target exits. We present a mathematical formulation for the model and show that the game has an NE with pure strategies. We also analyze different iterative methods for finding the NE and derive an upper bound for the number of iterations needed to find the equilibrium. Numerical simulations are used to analyze the properties of the model.

Numerous interrelated factors affect building performance. Physical building elements, internal and external climatic conditions, and building occupants interact through time to impact the way a building consumes resources. Currently, however, leading building performance software programs represent much of the information related to these factors in text or chart form. Such representations make it difficult for building designers, operators, and other stakeholders to understand how this information interacts through time. This paper describes an early prototype called OViz, which creates spatio-temporal representations of (observed and/or assumed) geometry, occupancy, environmental, and performance data, and enables users to visualize and explore how this information changes through time in a 3D environment. We are testing the extent to which these visualizations help designers and operators understand and detect meaningful patterns and interrelationships amongst the information and whether they can support design and operations decisions.

this way A multi-agent based approach to pedestrian simulation Pedestrian modelling and simulation have attracted much interest from a wide range of disciplines, including architectural design, safety engineering, emergency planning, computer science, psychology and sociology. In computer games, automated generation of pedestrians can be used to enhance the realism of a virtual environment. In film making, computer-generated crowds, which consist of a large number of animated characters who can respond individually to their surroundings, have been popularly used to create impressive battle scenes. In addition to entertainment, crowd and pedestrian simulations have been used to assist in the egress design of facilities such as airports and rail stations, and in safety engineering for emergency response training and disaster management. In social science, pedestrian simulation can be used to study group and crowd dynamics, and the collective social behaviour of people at gatherings, assemblies, protests, rebellions, concerts, sporting events and religious ceremonies. Pedestrian simulations enable human behaviour under extreme circumstances to be studied and experimented, providing insights that help save lives. Even for normal situations, pedestrian simulation can help improve existing environments so that potential problems such as overcrowding can be eradicated in advance. One example is a recent pedestrian simulation study performed for London Euston station, which showed that changing the location of ticket gates and the hall layout could effectively reduce passenger flow congestion (Crowd Simulation Blog, 2010). Despite the progress that has been made in the past several decades, pedestrian simulation remains challenging because it is very difficult to develop realistic and robust models that account for complex human and social behaviours for a broad range of scenarios. This It is very difficult to develop realistic and robust models that account for complex human behaviours for a wide range of scenarios

Development and validation of FDS+Evac for evacuation simulations Project summary reportVTT TIEDOTTEITA – RESEARCH NOTES 2421 Development and validation of FDS+Evac for evacuation simulations Project summary report

Abstract. Studies of past emergency events indicate that evacuating occupants often exhibit social behaviors that affect the evacuation process. This paper describes a multi-agent based simulation tool which enables the modeling of social behaviors during evacuation. In this modeling framework, each agent has a three-level representation that allows users to incorporate individual, group, and crowd behavioral rules in simulation. This paper describes the basic framework and the implementation of several social behaviors, which are based on recent social science studies about human response in emergency situations. Simulation results from the prototype reveals that social behaviors exhibited by the evacuating crowd can lead to changes in the overall egress time and pattern. By representing the virtual agents and the environment specific to evacuation situation, the research addresses the issues in incorporating human and