Communications - Scientific Letters of the University of Zilina 2022, 24(4):F82-F96 | DOI: 10.26552/com.C.2022.4.F82-F96

Optimization of Parameters for Pedestrian Simulation Software: A Case Study of Emergency Evacuation Experiments

Hari Krishna Gaddam ORCID...1, *, Lakshmi Devi Vanumu ORCID...2, Aditya Arya2, K. Ramachandra Rao ORCID...2
1 School of Planning and Design, National Rail and Transportation Institute, Under Ministry of Railways, Vadodara, Gujarat, India
2 Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India

This research study provides a new framework to optimize pedestrian simulation parameters required to replicate emergency evacuation conditions specifically observed in high rise buildings, passenger vehicles and transport terminals. The simulation experiments are performed with generalised social force model in VISWALK simulation environment. The data required for optimization are obtained by conducting several evacuation experiments. The results indicate that pedestrian behavioural aspects, such as the relaxation time, distance from the other pedestrian and force exerted by closest pedestrians, have a significant impact on total evacuation time. The outcomes are in consistence with field observations and the calibrated parameters would help in simulating future scenarios including building level simulations and further simulating emergency evacuation of passengers from transport terminals and vehicles.

Keywords: social force model, VISWALK, pedestrian simulation, classroom evacuation, sensitivity analysis, calibration, validation
Grants and funding:

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflicts of interest:

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Received: March 17, 2022; Revised: September 19, 2022; Accepted: August 18, 2022; Prepublished online: September 20, 2022; Published: October 26, 2022  Show citation

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Gaddam, H.K., Devi Vanumu, L., Arya, A., & Ramachandra Rao, K. (2022). Optimization of Parameters for Pedestrian Simulation Software: A Case Study of Emergency Evacuation Experiments. Communications - Scientific Letters of the University of Zilina, 24(4), F82-96. doi: 10.26552/com.C.2022.4.F82-F96
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