Stated and revealed exit choices of pedestrian crowd evacuees

Abstract

Introduction Understanding fundamental behavioural features regulating the escape wayfinding decisions of pedestrian humans in built environments has major implications for the safety planning and the risk-analysis of crowded public facilities. In contrast to the vast interest invested in modelling the momentary responses of evacuees to their immediate surroundings (i.e. the collision-avoidance models), their global navigation behaviour is poorly understood albeit believed to be a major determinant of the accuracy of the crowd simulation models. The primary challenge arises from the scarcity of reliable data suitable for modelling purposes causing the experimental knowledge in the field lagg..