Abstract:

In order to study the effect of the panic state on the evacuation time and process under an emergency, an evacuation simulation model based on cellular automata and an improved prisoner's dilemma model was established. The model discussed the effect of a panic state on the evacuation path, speed and behavioral strategy. Then, the impacts of initial occupant density, familiarity, behavioral strategy ratio and behavioral strategy inertia on the panicking crowd evacuation were analyzed. The study results show that the evacuation time generally increases as the degree of panic increases. However, an appropriate increase in the degree of panic can reduce the evacuation time under high-density gatherings and a high degree of familiarity with the environment. In addition, the standard deviation of crowd evacuation time for a certain evacuation scenario decreases with the increase of familiarity with the environment. When the occupants in a high degree of panic state are unfamiliar with the environment, maintaining a high degree of cooperative behavior can significantly reduce occupant evacuation time. Frequent adjustment of strategies increases evacuation time when environment familiarity is low.

Key words: panic state, emergency situation, cellular automata, prisoner's dilemma model, familiarity, behavioral strategy