Taking into account groups for evacuation analysis

Abstract

Previous research has provided useful information to qualitatively interpret fundaments of social influence during evacuation. However, this performance needs to be quantified that it can be understood and considered in life safety calculations. We apply a quantitative method for assessing the behavioural cohesion among evacuees i.e. whether individuals respond and move together, as a group. Three evacuation scenarios are analysed: 1) a multimodal station, 2) a sports centre and 3) a library. Results suggested that proximity (visual/verbal contact) could be an important factor but not decisive in the formation of evacuation groups. Social ties and whether occupants share a target and/or an activity before the alarm are also deemed to be important factors. Overall, these results indicate that the proposed method can be used as a priori assessment to determine the presence of evacuation groups in fire safety engineering analyses.