Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The behavior of the occupants is one major factor determining the outcome of building evacuations. Two different occupants may make very different decisions in similar situations. Evacuation simulation models should consider this factor and enable simulations with different behavioral scenarios. We present how three different behavioral types have been implemented to the agent based evacuation model FDS+Evac. The considered types are normal, rational, and herding agents and they differ in the way they select their target exits. The factors affecting the exit selections include the distance to the exit, the behavior of the other agents, visibility and familiarity of the exits, and the smokiness along the exit routes. Some verification simulations are made and the presented model is seen to work as intended. A larger scale evacuation scenario is analyzed to illustrate the effect of the agent types on the outcome of evacuations.