Pathfinder-Based Simulation and Optimisation of Personnel Evacuation Modelling of a Shopping Mall

Abstract

Abstract This study concerns a simulation and optimisation of the personnel evacuation modelling of a shopping mall in Weiyang District, Xi’an. First, investigations were conducted to determine the human flow rate tand occupant distribution during the rush hours to builda queuing theory model. Then, a simulation was implemented with an evacuation simulation software Pathfinder, followed by an analysis to the evacuation status and bottlenecks. On the basis of the evacuation status, proposals were put forward on how to overcome the bottlenecks to achieve the optimal matching among the personnel, emergency staircases and aisles. Finally, the improved scheme was simulated. Compared with time taken by the evavuation before improvement, the time taken was greatly shortened after improvement, proving the feasibility of the scheme. Through the simulation experimentaiton, it was found that ecacuation modelling can greatly facilitate reseaches on the evacuation problems in multistoryed shopping malls.