Modeling Risk and Precautionary Time Factors and Investigating Their Impact on Route Selection Behavior Under Fire Emergency

In cases of emergency evacuation, the spread of fire inside buildings threatens evacuation routes, which in turn affects the evaluation process of evacuees to choose the appropriate exit. Providing the simulated evacuees with the capabilities of estimating fire propagation risk is essential for optimal decision making in evacuation simulation. In this article, for a more realistic evacuation simulation, the impact of risk from a threat source on exit selection behavior is taken into account. The simulated evacuees are provided with the ability to estimate the risk of alternative routes by providing a risk factor model. In addition, protection of agent from direct exposure to the threat is presented through modeling the precautionary time factor, based on maintaining a dynamically varying minimum distance with respect to agent safety. Simulations are performed to calibrate the parameters in the risk and precautionary time models. The effect of contribution on the evacuation process is investigated. Using the proposed model in order to test different configurations can enable researchers in the field of fire safety to provide an optimal building profile and to develop better guidance systems. In addition, it enhances the ability of simulation models to include more possibilities for interactions to examine the behavior of other evacuees.