Evacuation with Obstacles in Real-Time using Crowd Simulation

Abstract: Exits with obstacles facilitate evacuations under specific circumstances. In order to quickly and efficiently find these circumstances, crowd simulations can be used. In this study, a particle based crowd simulation is used to find evacuation scenarios where obstacles facilitate evacuation. The scenarios used are based on data from experiments with real people performed by PHD student Daichi Yanagisawa.     The results show that scenarios where obstacles hamper evacuation for real people, also hamper evacuation for simulated people. No scenario was found where obstacles facilitated evacuations. The conclusion of the study is that particle based simulations of crowds can help find scenarios where obstacles do not facilitate evacuations. A simulation system that is better at recreating human behaviour in evacuation situations is required to find setups where obstacles can actively facilitate evacuation.