Passenger emergency evacuation from bus carriage : results from realistic data and modeling simulations

One of critical challenges in the development of pedestrian models is the lack of relevant data under emergency conditions. In this paper, we reveal several behavior characteristics of passenger emergency evacuation from a burning bus carriage, by observing and analyzing a video recording, attempting to close the gap between practical observation and theoretical modeling. The analysis results show that there are considerable differences between real emergency evacuation and experimental normal evacuation with respect to the cumulative flows, flows, and time gap distributions. Additionally, the behavior of falling-down, which contributes to the formation of movable obstacles, interrupts the continuity of the evacuation process. Then, we incorporate these behavioral characteristics into a microscopic pedestrian model with a fine lattice space representation. The simulation results indicate that the escape is slowed down by the falling behavior, as well as by the luggage-carrying behavior.