Study about influence of doors’ opening degree on crowd evacuation based on simulation

Abstract

Based on simulation, the influence of the doors’ opening degree (DOD) on crowd evacuation is investigated in this paper. First of all, an evacuation model, which has one exit with two doors, is established by utilizing the software Pathfinder. Then, based on the obtained model, some evacuation scenarios are considered. The simulation results indicate, when the DOD is within 115∘–135∘, the time saving rate is more than 13%, and the maximum time saving rate is achieved when the DOD is 125∘. Furthermore, there is a linear relationship between the mean square error and the number of the evacuees. For a small number of evacuees, the total evacuation time is mainly influenced by the distributions of the evacuees, however, as the number of the evacuees increases, it is mainly influenced by the number of the evacuees. Moreover, when the DOD is 125∘, the mean flow rate per unit width (MFRPUW) decreases along with the increasing of exit’s width, however, it increases along with the increasing of exit’s width while the DOD is 180∘. Compared with the 180∘ DOD, the 125∘ DOD can always achieve a higher MFRPUW, and the narrower the exit is, the higher MFRPUW the 125∘ DOD achieves.