Modeling Social Groups and Roles in Egress Simulation

Emergency evacuation (egress) design and planning are important aspects in building and facility engineering. Studies of past emergency events indicate that evacuating occupants often exhibit social behaviors during the evacuation process. Such behaviors are often shaped by pre-existing social relationships and influenced by perceived information. This paper describes an on-going research effort towards the development of an egress simulation tool that takes into account the human and social behaviors observed in post-fire studies and disasters investigations. The multi-agent based simulation framework, SAFEgress (Social Agent For Egress simulation), is designed to allow the users to incorporate different occupants' behaviors into egress simulations. The prototype software is able to simulate certain social behaviors and the interactions among the occupants that are commonly observed during emergencies.