Human movement characteristics during emergency evacuations in a virtual environment

This study presents an evacuation experiment to test individual behavior in an interactive virtual environment. A total of 68 test scenarios were established, and 122 participants were recruited to take part in all the test scenarios. The results show that individual attributes, such as sex, educati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFire safety journal Vol. 115; pp. 103147 - 13
Main Authors Zhiming, Fang, Huisheng, Gao, Lixue, Jiang, Xiaolian, Li, Wei, Lv
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Lausanne Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2020
Elsevier BV
Subjects
Education
Escape decision-making ability
Evacuation
Evacuation routing
Evacuation time
Fire
Human background
Human behavior
Human motion
Limited view
Route selection
Virtual environments
Virtual evacuation test
Virtual reality
Visibility
Evacuation time
Limited view
Virtual evacuation test
Fire
Escape decision-making ability
Human background
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Summary:This study presents an evacuation experiment to test individual behavior in an interactive virtual environment. A total of 68 test scenarios were established, and 122 participants were recruited to take part in all the test scenarios. The results show that individual attributes, such as sex, education background, age, and evacuation experience, have a correlation with the participants’ ability of escaping in the virtual evacuation environment. Specifically, younger men with higher education level and evacuation experience may have a better ability of escaping. The comparison of the evacuation paths, directions, and times among 8 scenarios with different sets reveals that people prefer to select the shortest route, but keep away from the fire source as much as possible if a fire happens. On the other hand, other people compete with the individual for the available evacuation resources, but when the exit location is unknown, other people may help individuals find the exit. In addition, the visibility decreases in case of fire, which is the most difficult condition for escaping with the longest movement distance and most evacuation time. This study will be useful to understand the human behavior and movement characteristics during evacuation by using a cheap and safe method.
ISSN:0379-7112
1873-7226
DOI:10.1016/j.firesaf.2020.103147